Harper's Hope
by H. S. Shore
Summary: Can dragonriders change the events of past times, or only confirm them? What is to be done about the holder traditionalists, and can love travel as easily between times as dragons do? Sequel to Harper's Folly.
1. Live for My Living, or Else I Must Die

**Harper's Hope**

The Second Story in the Harper's Time Series

**Author's Note**

This story can be read as a sequel to Harper's Folly, as it is in the same storyline. It is, however, essentially a standalone, and is much longer, and more all-encompassing than Harpers's Folly. I would recommend reading Harper's Folly, it will help you with the relationships in this story, though it's not absolutely required.

Should have any corrections or complaints, please _politely_ and _respectfully_ inform me and I'll see what I can do about it. Also, if you're reading this story, please review! Obviously we all love praise, but I also love constructive criticism. Honestly, all you have to do to keep my posting is to submit a review saying "I'm reading!" just so that I know that you're out there. After all, who wants to bother posting chapters on a deadline if no one is reading?

Originally, I had written out a whole summary here of what the basic plot was in this story. It occurs to me that you really ought to just dive in and read it for yourself without further preamble. So I'll leave you to it.

Enjoy.

H. S. Shore

_And if the truth is never known_

_I promise I will take you home_

- Menolly's Song for a Loved One

(Harper's Folly)

**Chapter One: Live for My Living, or Else I Must Die**

Menolly couldn't breathe for sobbing. She lay in her bed at the Harper Hall, writhing pitifully back and forth, entirely asleep, lost in her dreams. Although her queen, Beauty, and her nine other firelizards lay around her, these were no firelizard fantasies that she experienced, but her own vividly passionate nightmares. She couldn't escape the images that kept running through her mind, images of the beaches of Cove Hold, of the mysterious AIVAS, and then of herself, as a girl, running from thread on the beaches of her cave between Half-Circle and Nerat.

The firelizards began to wake, as Menolly's sobs grew more desperate and sustained. Beauty, creeling with concern, rose into the air and hovered above Menolly's head, beating her wings and agitation as she tried to determine the cause of her owner's distress. Soon, all of the firelizards were airborne, sweeping around Menolly's head with wild cries of fear and distraction.

"Menolly?" Sebell came rushing into the room, trying to make himself heard over the raucous calls of the firelizards. "Menolly? Wake up, love, you're having a nightmare. Menolly…Menolly!" Bending over her, he took her by the shoulders and shook her, gently and yet frantically, ducking the wheeling firelizards as he did so. "Wake up, please…please, wake up…"

Sebell couldn't help being frightened by the passion of Menolly's cries. This was the third time she'd been disturbed like this, and she had subsequently woken up the entire hall three times. Looking over his shoulder, Sebell was relieved to see that no one had yet intruded on his room. It wouldn't be long now before half of the harpers in the place would be along to complain at being disturbed yet again, and he was too worried about his wife to be prepared to deal with their whining.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, Menolly's nightmare seemed to end. She quieted, and her body stopped its agitated gyrations, so that she lay still, on her stomach, one arm draped over the side of the bed in exhaustion. Beauty, Rocky, Diver, Poll, Uncle, and then the others slowly settled on to the window ledge, all in a judicial looking row, watching Menolly with concerned chirpings.

"I'm sorry," she was whispering, her eyes still tightly shut. She sat up on the bed, turning her torso towards Sebell, but refusing to open her eyes, as if afraid of his expression. Sebell reached down, and tilted her chin up so that she was facing him directly. He kissed her forehead, and Menolly finally returned his gaze. "I'm sorry, I…I didn't mean to do it again."

"The firelizards?" Sebell asked, understandingly. Menolly nodded. "It's strange," he said, frowning to himself as he glanced around the room for Kimi, his own queen. "Kimi doesn't seem at all bothered by whatever's troubling your fair. I can't figure it out. Why yours, and yet not a single other firelizard in the hall?"

Menolly shook her head, and held up her hands in a gesture of confusion. "I don't know," she murmured, with a sigh. "I don't know anything, I…it doesn't make sense. I'd make it make sense if I could, but I can't, I just…"

Sebell pressed her down against the pillows again, holding up a finger to his lips. "Never mind, love," he insisted, kissing her to forestall her protestations. "It doesn't matter right now. I'm going to the Weyr in the morning, I'll ask them if they know anything about these sudden firelizard agitations. Maybe it isn't just yours, maybe some of those at Fort, or even at Benden, have been experiencing the same thing." He recalled that when Menolly had been a girl, new at the Hall, her firelizards had been the first to proclaim the return of F'nor from the Red Star. It was very possible that this time, something similarly awful was happening, something that he, as the Masterharper of Pern, should know.

Sebell gave her hand a final, comforting squeeze, and then, glancing towards the door, realized that he'd best get back to his work. He felt like he never slept anymore, and briefly, he wondered if his recent slate of long absences from both the hall and from his own bed were keeping his wife from sleep. She wouldn't want to tell him, if that was the case, and yet it would very easily explain her nightmares and agitation.

"I'll see you in the morning," he whispered, as he closed the door behind him. "Try to sleep, Menolly. Just try." He left her, then, promising himself even as he did so that he'd return before the morning, so that he could be there when she awoke.

* * *

Menolly watched him go, and, as soon as he closed the door, expelled the breath that she had been holding. Beauty let out a sharp sort of croon, echoing Menolly's combination of distress and relief. Then, the firelizard queen flew down to settle herself on Menolly's chest, and the harper welcomed the contact. She wrapped her arms around Beauty's warm body, and willed herself to go back to sleep. There was no hope of that, however. Menolly wondered ruefully if she would ever have a quiet rest again. 

She knew very well that it was her agitation and not that of the firelizards that was causing this nighttime distress. No matter what she told Sebell, each of her friends was calm and composed until Menolly began to have bad dreams. Furthermore, she could never, for any reason, tell Sebell the real cause of her distress, or let on what the images were that haunted her.

It had all started innocently enough. Menolly was sure that it was normal for a woman in her position to experience guilt, guilt for disloyal thoughts, guilt which would come out in strange ways, and keep her from sleep. Sometimes, Menolly knew, it took a long time for such guilt to come to fruition. By that same token, it was no doubt expected that someone would be torn up over the loss of a loved one, and Menolly would never shake the terrible feeling of loss that came from the former Masterharper's untimely death. It had been untimely, old as he was, because he had just survived a heart attack, and had just come into his own again as a powerful and vigorous man. He hadn't been ready to go, and Menolly hadn't been ready to lose him. She'd learned over time to suppress her emotions, to try and control them to a healthy degree. Yet, just in the last couple of sevendays, Menolly had found that those feelings of loss and pain, always far at the back of her mind, had become more intense, more awful than she had ever expected. She had no idea what had spurred this sudden onrush of recollections, but she did know that she couldn't live like this. And yet, there was nothing for it. She would simply have to learn to accept it, as she had learned to accept that she was allowed to be a harper, all those turns ago. This time, there was no one to help her, because no matter how much the rest of Pern had loved, and had been beloved of the former Masterharper, they would still never be capable of understanding the depth of her own loss.

Beauty chirped piteously, and nestled closer into the soft skin of Menolly's neck. She flashed an image into Menolly's mind, an image of a lithe bronze firelizard. It wasn't Rocky, Diver, Poll, or any other that belonged to members of the Hall. It was…

"Shards, not you too," whispered Menolly, shaking her head and gently pushing Beauty off of her and on to the pillow beside her. "Let me alone, you. I have enough of my own grief. The last thing I need is to see what you remember."

* * *

Sharra was waiting outside of Ruatha, watching Jaxom and Ruth spiral down towards her. It was late, and she was hungry, having waited for them for at least three hours in hopes of dining with her husband. Even as she watched the white dragon's arrival, her stomach growled awkwardly, and Sharra grimaced. She would have to have words with Jaxom about staying so long away from the hold, and then expecting her to have dinner on the table and warmth in her eye when he arrived. She was one of the most long-suffering women that she knew, but even she had her limits.

It was only as Ruth and Jaxom neared her that she noticed how the dragon listed in his flight, how the two of them drifted in almost haphazard spirals, entirely unlike their usual flight patterns. Alarmed, Sharra called out to him, waving her arms and standing on her tiptoes in hopes of being noticed.

"Jaxom! Ruth! Are you all right?"

She was forced to jump back as Ruth and his rider touched down, blowing up dust and dirt all over Sharra's skirts. She shook them out absently, rushing towards Jaxom even as he dismounted.

Jaxom's face was lined with exhaustion, and he sagged into Sharra's arms as she embraced him. Drawing in a breath, she lifted his head to gaze into his half-lidded eyes. "Ruth?" She asked, turning to gaze at the dragon. "Ruth, what's wrong? Is he hurt? Is Jaxom all right?"

We…are tired, Ruth responded, shaking his head in a bizarrely human-like gesture. _We must bathe, and eat, and sleep, but we cannot. Jaxom is not well. _

That much was apparent. Without any further communication, Ruth curled himself up into a dragon-sized ball, and prepared to sleep right where he'd landed. Sharra was about to encourage him to at least make his way to his much more comfortable bed, but before she'd had a chance to do so, Jaxom spoke, distracting her attention.

"I need…something to eat," he was saying trying and failing to struggle out of her grasp and to his own feet. "I have to sit down…we've been out too long in the sun, and I think…" Jaxom had to stop and take a few deep breaths before he continued. "I think it's gone to Ruth's head, and to mine." Even in the face of his fatigue, he turned to take a long, concerned look at his dragon.

_I am fine, _Sharra heard Ruth say_. You must go with Sharra. You need to rest. Now. Before we must be off again. _The dragon's tone was firm and Jaxom, dazedly obeying the order, turned to allow his wife to lead him back into the hold. As they entered and closed the heavy hold doors behind hem, Sharra remembered her previous idea of speaking to Jaxom about spending too much time away from home. Perhaps she wouldn't have to, if this intense fatigue was the result of his activity.

"I can't stay," he was muttering, even as she led him along. "F'lar of Benden's sent for me. Mnementh's bespoken Ruth, and I have to go…"

"You have to do nothing," retorted Sharra, "not in this condition. We'll talk more about overextending yourself after you've had a chance to get some food in you."

Jaxom waved her off, struggling away from her to gain his own sound footing. "No," he insisted, "not today. I'll eat, yes, but then I've got to go. You don't refuse the Benden Weyrleader's summons, Sharra. Even you know that"

Sharra did know that, but it didn't mean that she had to like it.


	2. Hard Questions

**Chapter Two: Hard Questions**

"I assure you, Lord Volpire," Weyrleader F'lar was saying, tapping his fingers against the sand-table in the corner of the Queen's Weyr, "there is no reason, and never has been any reason for you to be concerned about what goes on within the walls of the Weyrs. We do not presume to tell you how you Lords must treat your women in your own Holds. Do not suppose that you can tell us how we may deal with ours."

F'lar's voice was firm and stern, and the look that he gave the Lord in question was equally solid. Lord Volpire, however, did not look convinced.

The Lord of Lemos Hold, Azgenar's son and successor, was a thick-set man with a surprisingly boyish face, and a manner that was at the same time as peevish as an old man, and as naïve as a small child. F'lar missed Lord Volpire's father, who had been not only loyal to Benden in every capacity, but had been a kind, intelligent, and reasonable man, a man whom F'lar had been pleased to see sharing the leadership of Pern. Volpire had taken very little either from his mother or his father, and was rather more like his older sister, Ardenara, a capricious and flighty woman, soon to be married to the son of Telgar's lord.

"And yet, our young people are subjected, day in and day out to the visions of these…dragonflights, and these…shamefully heinous abuses of the institutions that we holders have always respected," Volpire continued, gesturing emphatically with one flabby-fingered hand as he paced back and forth in front of F'lar. "What's more, our sons and daughters, carted off to search, become subjected to the same lusts that we guard so much against. You see my point, I assume."

"I understand," began F'lar, as patiently as he could. "And yet, I hope that you too will understand-!"

"And yet," Lessa interrupted, cutting her weyrmate off, "There's really been no change in the practices of the Holds or of the Weyrs in last ten turns, concerning what you call our 'heinous' practices. Your sons and daughters would all give their arms and legs to come to the Weyr and to impress a dragon of their own. Even now, in these significantly less troubled times," and Lessa put emphasis on the final three words, "there is still no greater honor than to be a dragonrider."

"That is not," insisted Volpire, "my point at all, Weyrwoman." He gave Lessa a brief look, before turning back to address the rest of his argument to F'lar. Lessa, clearly infuriated by that dismissal, opened her mouth to reply to him, but F'lar held up his hand to forestall her, trying not to let his own irritation get the better of him.

"What then, are you proposing that we do?" He asked. "We have not, in all of the years that we have watched over the holds and halls of Pern, forced any of the Weyr morals or practices on anyone else. We will continue to-!"

"Weyr morals?" Volpire snorted, shaking his head. "Far from it, Lord F'lar, far from it. Weyr morals, as you put them, don't so much exist in our time."

Lessa seethed. Before the Weyrleader could stop her, she'd come around the side of the sand-table and, arms akimbo, was glaring at Lemos' Lord, her eyes snapping with aggression. "Let me remind you of all the trouble that we have gone through, that will will go through again in order to protect our society for the sake of your people and their ways of life! And you, you…stripling Lord, you have the amazing gall to tell me, me, the woman who made the jump through time to save your very skin and those of your holders, that we do not uphold a system of morals?"

F'lar couldn't help being impressed by the apparent total lack of concern on Lord Volpire's face. Many a man had quailed in the face of Lessa's temper and tongue, and yet this man was either unperturbed, or amazingly good at keeping his cool. Volpire expelled a thoughtful breath, looking curiously at the Weyrwoman for a moment, and then straightened his shoulders, folding his hands together in the picture of understanding patience.

"Let me tell you a story," he started, and F'lar was appalled at the condescension in Volpire's tone. "My sister, Ardenara, had a girl, a lady's maid, if you will, named Marilene. Marilene was very young, about sixteen, when she left Lemos Hold to go to Benden Weyr as a candidate for Ramoth's most recent clutch. No one expected that she would impress, as she was a such a sweet and self-effacing girl, far from the sort of fighting woman that the Weyr would want." He frowned. "We were mistaken, apparently. She impressed," and he put a strange emphasis on the word "impressed" which made F'lar raise his eyebrows, "a green dragon, and before long was flying with the Benden wings. Her father," he continued, "a certain Martor by name, came to visit her at Benden, and he was absolutely disgusted by the state in which he found his daughter."

Volpire looked expectantly at F'lar, who returned his gaze steadily, waiting for the Lord to continue. Seeing that his story had so far had no decent effect, Volpire tried again.

"He found her," Volpire insisted, "living with the rider of a brown dragon, a rider whom he had never met, with three children somewhere about the Weyr of whom she took no notice, and for whom she didn't care. She was pregnant with a fourth, in fact, although she couldn't be sure whether or not the same rider with whom she was living was the father of the unborn babe." The Lord shook his head expressively. "You see, Lord F'lar, such things can't possibly be accepted. They simply are not appropriate, and I am not the only Lord Holder who has begun not to grumble but to roar about the ridiculous discrepancies between our values and yours. There have been countless such incident, so many, in fact, that we, the Lord Holders, are beginning to wonder whether or not it isn't necessary to protect our women and our young folk, and to forcibly curtail such…practices."

F'lar tried to remember the girl in question. There were still only a few women who impressed at Benden, and it didn't take the Weyrleader long to pick out Marilene, the only female who had come from Lemos hold at the last hatching. She had been a very pretty, precious thing, and many of the riders had given her lusty looks that, at the time, she had abhorred. Although he remembered her face, he couldn't remember hearing either from her or about her since she'd impressed, and so he'd assumed that she was getting on well at the Weyr, without any trouble. Apparently, her father and the other members of her home hold thought otherwise.

Just as F'lar opened his mouth to reply to the Lord's story, Jaxom burst into the room, his face lined with weariness and overexertion. Lessa, with a little cry of surprise, rushed around F'lar and Volpire to take Jaxom firmly by the arm. "What on earth have you done to yourself?" She asked him, concern written all over her previously furious face. "Sit down before you fall down. Go on, then, that's an order."

Volpire looked a bit alarmed at Jaxom's appearance, and he bowed quickly to F'lar, then to Lessa, making his way towards the door. "I've no need to bother you further, today," he was saying as he vacated the room. "You have all of my news, and you know what's been said. I'll hope that you've a solution to the problem that can be instituted sooner than later, because I fear that if you don't-!"

"Thank you, Lord Volpire." F'lar ushered him out of the room, closing the door behind him, and calling out, "Your visits and thoughts are always appreciated." Then he shut Volpire out, and stepped back, expelling a long, exasperated breath.

"The storm is going to break upon on, Lessa," The Weyrleader sighed, crossing back to where his weyrmate sat with Jaxom in the far corner of the room. "Just as one threadscore heals, we discover another."

Lessa was too busy to respond, forcing Jaxom to lie back in the chair, and probing his pulse with her small, quick fingers. Jaxom himself started at F'lar's words, and attempted to stand, forcing Lessa to press him harder into the seat. "Lie still," she hissed, "and we'll call down for some hot klah for you. If you'd only told us that you weren't well, we'd never have asked you to come."

"I'm fine," insisted Jaxom, pushing her hands away, "Really, Lessa, I'm fine. I'm just a bit drained, that's all. What's going on with Lord Volpire? Lemos giving you a hard time about those herdbeasts that went missing again? It's not as if they wouldn't have known if a dragon had swooped down and carried them off. It's a silly argument to make."

"It's not the herdbeasts," F'lar was saying, shaking his head. "This time, it's a little more of an…all encompassing dilemma." He shot a look at Lessa, and she, ruefully releasing Jaxom's shoulders, settled back into her own chair with a disgusted snort.

"What we'd like to know," she began, cutting more quickly to the chase than F'lar would have liked her to, "is what happened at the conclave of the Lord Holders that happened this past sevenday. Oh yes," and she held up her hand, stopping the protest that Jaxom seemed to be preparing, "we know about it all right. In fact, we've been told about it many a time already, by a few lords who are less friendly to the Weyrs and to us than you are."

"It's imperative," agreed F'lar, "that we know of any actions that the lords may be deciding to take. You, as a dragonrider, can appreciate our predicament, I hope."

Jaxom grimaced. "I can't appreciate it," he murmured apologetically, "as I've never been permitted to live myself in the Weyr. I've never been "subjected" as you might say to the sort of Weyr practices and life that the holders are so avidly protesting."

"But you do understand, then," F'lar pursued, "what the grievances are."

Jaxom sighed. "The conclave of Lords," he began, "have decided that it's necessary to force the Weyrs to modify their practices for the sake of the moral health of all Pern. Either that, or the Weyrs must keep their impressions closed, and only allow those who have grown up in the Weyrs to stand on the hatching grounds, so as not to infect the bloodlines of the holders and crafters with the inappropriate ideas that Weyr life. We do not intend to stop supporting the Weyrs, or for our respect towards their authority to decrease. The simple feeling is that the Weyrs must modify the way that they treat their people, and ours." Jaxom spoke as if reciting a harper's teaching song, his voice completely devoid of either emotion or conviction. F'lar regarded him thoughtfully.

"And you, Jaxom? Do you believe that we're an immoral and subsequently subversive lot?" There was a gentle, teasing in note in F'lar's tone, completely at odds with the bleak concern in his eyes. Jaxom shook his head wordlessly. "No, of course not," F'lar continued, with a small smile. "Silly of me to ask. After all, you've grown up with Lytol, and I expect that he, at least, has never rejected our customs."

"They can do nothing," muttered Lessa. "They can't possibly enforce these demands. You say, Jaxom that there's no intention of rejecting us, failing to help support us? There aren't any stirrings of mutiny among the ranks?" She gave him a sour look.

"No, Lessa. But, just as the Weyrs were autonomous long ago, the holds intend to separate themselves entirely from the Weyrs, and to refuse to allow people to move between the two in the same way."

"No more support for our hatchings and our dragons," F'lar murmured, "although they don't want our deaths on their hands." Jaxom nodded.

Lessa sighed. Rising, she swept across the room retrieve a piece of redfruit from a bowl near the door, and Jaxom experienced a pang as he noticed the very real, deeply etched lines in her face, the bony, wrinkled quality of her fingers, and the mincing way that she tripped across the floor. Age was the one great menace that not a single person on Pern could forestall. Everyone aged, everyone died, and everyone had their time. He tried not to think of Lytol, whom he knew was suffering far more than the Weyrwoman and Weyrleader from his own battle with time.

"So," he asked, briskly turning his mind away from those unpleasant channels, "what are you going to do about it?"


	3. Tough Answers

**Chapter Three: Tough Answers**

"I haven't any idea," F'lar muttered darkly. "That's partially why we asked you here. You're a Lord Holder; you tell me what you think we should do."

Jaxom shrugged. "This sort of thing has happened before, hasn't it? The mighty lords of the holds rising up against the Weyrs, full of wrath and indignation. It happened before Lessa," and he inclined his head respectfully at the Weyrwoman, "brought forward the 5 Weyrs in time. It happened when we began to implement the new technologies, the new practices. It's such a common occurrence, in fact, that I'm not sure why you'd pay any particular heed to it. Hasn't the Weyr always come out on top? I'm sure it will this time, as well, with strong leaders like yourself."

F'lar shook his head, and exchanged a knowing look with Lessa. She looked annoyed, but sighed, wringing her hands as if expressing her own helplessness. "It's not the same as it used to be, lad," F'lar began, seating himself and planting his hands on his knees as he regarded Jaxom. "We're not quite in the same position we were in, all of those times you mentioned."

Thinking that he understood, Jaxom bit his lip. "Age is nothing," he insisted furiously. "You're still powerful, you're still potent. We respect you more now than we ever have, if just because of everything that the two of you have been through for our sakes. At least, I do. And I know that a good many of the craftmasters do. Master Sebell, for example. And Master Terry."

F'lar let out of a bark of derisive laughter. "The craftmasters indeed. It's not our age that bothers me, Jaxom. Lessa and I are still kicking, as much as we ever were." Lessa nodded vigorously to confirm his words. "When the Lords rioted over the "abuse" of the Weyrs the first time, the appearance of thread assuaged their doubts. We put down the other riots with similar means of proof or persuasion." He sighed. "But it is very difficult for Lessa and I to imagine a solution to this problem. We cannot placate the Lords with facts and figures, and we find it equally impossible to suddenly change the entire lifestyle of riders and their dragons to conform to these..these…" He trailed off, uncertain.

Lessa chimed in. "To these traditionalist follies," she shot. "Just because the holds and crafts are rooted in old-fashioned practices – and we've seen this before, mind you, with their rejections of new technologies – doesn't mean that they have to enforce their beliefs about what is right and wrong on us, and so very suddenly as to make no sense at all." She glanced at F'lar, who was frowning contemplatively.

"The craftmasters," started Jaxom, for a second time, "would definitely back you up. They care so much less about rigid practices than the holds do."

"Except for Fandarel's obsession with inefficiencies," chuckled F'lar, looking wistfully at Lessa. "Rest his soul, he was nothing if not a practical man." He paused. "But you're right, Jaxom, the crafts are less likely to be as incensed as the holds. And yet, I can't think of anyone who would be particularly eager to stand up to a conclave of Lord Holders on the subject."

Lessa frowned at Jaxom, and scuffed the heel of her boot against the floor in an angry, abrasive movement. "Robinton," she said, "would have stood up for us. That man always did."

F'lar threw her a harsh look. "Yes," he agreed, "but the good Masterharper's passed on now, and these references to his unfortunate absence aren't welcome." He softened at Lessa's contrite look, and passed an arm around her shoulders as he turned back to Jaxom. "Grant you, he was a marvelous speaker. He could move us all to tears with not so much as a sentence. I don't think the current respectable Masterharper is quite the same vibrant stirrer of affections that Robinton was. But, short of bringing him back from the dead, well…we'd best leave that topic and work on coming up with a solution. What? What is it?"

F'lar looked bemusedly at Jaxom. The Lord Holder's s mouth was hanging open in a boyishly shocked sort of way, and he was staring back and forth between F'lar and Lessa. "Well? What's troubling you, lad? Have you been listening to me, or are you too exhausted to be here after all?" Torn between amusement and concern, F'lar reached out a hand towards Jaxom, but Jaxom shook his head violently, a slow smile starting over his face.

"That's it," he said, turning on F'lar. "That's just it."

"What's it?" Lessa looked as though she was genuinely fearful for Jaxom's health. "You're red in the face, Jaxom, I think you should lie down for a while."

Jaxom started to pace, moving back and forth in tight lines in front of the two dragonriders. "Bring him back from the dead…we have to bring him back. Back, you see? We need Master Robinton to come back!"

Lessa grabbed on to Jaxom's shoulder to stop his pacing, her head reeling from watching his dizzying movements. "What in Faranth's name," she murmured stonily, "are you talking about, Lord Jaxom?"

"Who else could move the holders to understanding?" asked Jaxom. "Who else could recreate that bond between their customs, and the customs of the Weyr? It's inevitable, you see, absolutely crucial that we bring him-!"

Lessa was shaking her head, slowly, and Jaxom, seeing her disapprobation, stopped speaking and gave her a quizzical look. "You're ill," she was saying, closing her eyes in an excess of emotion. "You're not feeling properly and you're speaking like a madman. I won't hear any more of it until you've rested. We can't possibly begin to discuss such issues with someone in your condition, not if we expect you to be capable and helpful."

The Lord Holder stared first at Lessa, then at F'lar, observing the closed, almost angry expressions on both of their faces. "I don't understand," he said, perplexed. "You're dragonriders, we all are. We can go between times, we can warp the very fabric of time itself, there's nothing that we can't recreate, can't fix. This is our chance, the one that we should have taken long ago, to bring back the Masterharper. We need him now, we're in crisis. What's difficult to understand?"

"It can't be done, Jaxom,' Lessa whispered. "Don't you think that if we could have done it, we'd have done so already? Surely you don't think that we're so callous as to have let that particular matter lie, if there had been any hope?" She looked down at the floor, running her hands over each other in quick, nervous gestures.

"But why?" Jaxom insisted. "Why isn't there any hope?"

"If we'd brought him back, between times," Lessa continued, "we'd know." She paused a moment, to let that thought sink in to Jaxom's overeager mind. "If he'd come back with us, we wouldn't have seen him," and she choked on the word, "die…the way we did. Don't you see?"

Jaxom saw. He saw all too clearly, and the ecstatic stirrings in his chest quieted suddenly, leaving him feeling even more tired than he had been previously. He felt stupid and childish, having proposed such an obviously impossible idea to the leaders of the Weyrs of Pern. Why hadn't he bothered to think it through? It was so obvious…

There was silence in the room for a long time, as Jaxom tried to think of how to recover from the blunder that had brought memories of that good man so sharply back to all of their minds. There must be something else he could do, he thought, something that he could say to the lords, some way that he could stand up as a spokesman for both hold and Weyr. That was the real reason that Lessa and F'lar had brought him here, and yet all that he had managed to do was make a stupid, far-fetched plea that sounded like it came straight from a child's tale.

"And yet," F'lar said, in a barely audible undertone, "we've never bothered to try."

Lessa shot him a frightened look. "No," she said, "and we never will try, not with the total lack of reason to believe that we would succeed. We've discussed this before, F'lar, we discussed it long ago. There's no reason to unearth it now."

"Maybe we've been fools all along," replied F'lar, waving aside her argument with one hand as he regarded Jaxom curiously. "Surely we owe it to the man to at least attempt his rescue. Surely he'd expect as much from the great leaders of Benden…and wouldn't we expect as much from ourselves? No, we have no proof that dragonriders have gone back to bring forward the Masterharper. If we had, we imagine that he would have disappeared from that time, and never have been able to die." He paused. "But we also," and there was a note of eagerness to his voice now, characteristic of the old, violently progressive F'lar, "cannot prove that it is impossible. We cannot prove that dragons cannot do something that they do not already know that they will have done…" He stopped, his eyes wide, a bewildered smile on his face. "It's difficult to talk about time," he noticed idly, "because one is never sure how to conjugate one's verbs…"

Lessa stood up in one fluid movement, her skirts swirling around her ankles as her feet knocked against the legs of her chair in her haste to leave. "I won't listen to this nonsense," she insisted, holding her hands out in front of her as if to ward off their dangerous ideas. "I won't listen to it, and its' cruel to subject anyone to such a discussion. The man is dead. Do you understand me? The man's dead, Lord Jaxom, F'lar. You'll only hurt if you try to correct the inevitable, and the past is inevitable. I, Lessa of Pern, the one woman who has made the most dangerous time-jump, say that it is inevitable. And that is all that I have to say on the matter." With that, she stormed from the room, and the two men could hear Ramoth's angry bugling, as the golden queen took off to join her infuriated lifemate.

"Well, " said F'lar into the ensuing quiet, "I suppose that's not an unreasonable thing to expect. We'd best keep this plan to ourselves, if we're going to prevent other people form having that same sort of violent reaction to it. This should be a secret, just the two of us, and…" He trailed off, thinking, his bro w creased with concentration.

"Then…you plan to try it?" Jaxom turned to face F'lar, tearing his eyes from the door by which the Weyrwoman had left. "You don't think that it's impossible."

F'lar shrugged helplessly. "I already told you," he said, "I couldn't possibly say. But…it's something that we should know. Something that we should understand. This ability of the dragons…we have to know how far it really goes, how much we can, or cannot do." He frowned. "And yet, maybe we failed to bring Robinton back because the rider in question, the rider who was sent to retrieve him, got hurt in the process, or was lost between. It's not such a safe and innocent venture as I had thought, then. No, not at all." He began to mutter to himself, so quietly that Jaxom was unable to hear the words. Lost in his own perplexing thoughts, F'lar seemed to entirely forget that the white rider was even in the room. After several moments, Jaxom felt it necessary to speak up.

"That's why I have to go, F'lar. Because I understand the situation, better now, after this conversation, than anyone else could."

F'lar looked up at him. "Lessa would never forgive me," he said. "Lytol would never…"

"Lytol," interrupted Jaxom inexorably, "won't live much longer." He bit down on his lip to clear the lump that had risen so abruptly in his throat. "Lytol would love to see his old friend return, would love to see us discover the true abilities of the dragonriders of Pern."

F'lar chuckled. "You're telling me, then, that I owe it to Lytol not to take the considerations to heart of the only person on Pern whom he's managed to care fore in turns? That's hard saying, my lord. I'm not entirely sure, that, should things go wrong, he would take see it the way you do."

Jaxom waited. He allowed F'lar to turn the entire situation over in his mind, and watched as the Weyrleader's eyes lit up, both with the possibility of seeing his old friend again, and with the knowledge that, even in his age, there were still discoveries he could make, in the tradition of his many turns of exploration. F'lar wasn't a man to lie down and submit quietly to his years, and Jaxom knew it. The Weyrleader had been aching for something to do with his time, and this was a wonderful way to…Jaxom couldn't, wouldn't' say "to go." It was a wonderful way to spend his time.

F'lar, apparently, reached the same conclusion, for when he raised his head his eyes were shining with hope. "We must tell no one about this," he reiterated. "Especially not Lessa."

Lessa would know, anyhow, Jaxom thought. She always did know when the game was afoot, probably because she was just as impetuous as her weyrmate.


	4. If He Could Turn Back Time

**Author's Note: **Dear readers,

I know you are there, because I see you on my stats page, even though you don't' review.

Please review! I want t o know what you think, and what you would like to see!

Also, can anyone tell me what the names are of Menolly's children? I know she has them, but I can't for the life of me either remember what they're called, or find the names anywhere. Am I crazy? I could have sworn that she has kids…

**Chapter Four: **If He Could Turn Back Time

Jaxom and Ruth landed at the Harper Hall just a little after dawn. No one was yet stirring, except for a couple of apprentices, whom Jaxom could see through their lighted windows. One boy was leaning out of his window, gesturing and signaling in some sort of unrecognizable pattern towards a boy in another window. Jaxom smiled, remembering his own days as a youth, when he and F'lessan had made up equally complex and useless secret codes for the sake of their private communications.

Passing under the windows of the early risers, Jaxom left Ruth at the entrance to the hall, and made his way inside, pacing quietly in hopes of being as unremarkable as possible. F'lar had made it extremely clear that no one need know about Jaxom's jaunt, as, if it failed, he would prefer that no one be depressed or disappointed by the outcome. There was absolutely no reason; after all, to believe that he had any chance of succeeding, and no one knew that better than Jaxom himself.

_We will succeed, _insisted Ruth from the doorway, implacably._ We will succeed because we have done it before, and we have learned all of the tricks. We can therefore do it again. _

"It's different, this time, Ruth," Jaxom replied, frowning at his dragon's nonchalance. "We're can't be sure that we're capable of making an…an unprecedented time-swap, if you will." After a moment of consideration, he added, "You can tell me that you don't want to, if you don't feel safe about it. I don't want to risk-!"

_We will succeed, _repeated Ruth, with a mild rebuke for his skeptical rider in his tone. _You should never ask me to doubt you. That is foolish. Why would you want doubt? _

Jaxom gave up on that train of thought, shaking his head as he recognized that Ruth would always have some of that recklessness in his nature that the two of them had made such good use of in their youth. It was comforting to know that Ruth wasn't staled by age, as he himself felt he was becoming. As long as he had Ruth's encouragement, he could never be one of the decrepit do-nothings that some of the respected old folk were becoming, no matter how many turns he amassed.

Suddenly, a bronze firelizard was in Jaxom's face. Chittering in pleasure at the sight of Ruth, the creature did a swooping dive out of the door, and landed, Jaxom had no doubt, on Ruth's back, where the rest of the firelizards of the Hall would soon end up, as they always did. Ruth warbled in pleasure at having company, and Jaxom chuckled, heading up the stairs towards the room of Masterharper Sebell.

He knocked hesitantly, and the door opened, revealing not Sebell, but Menolly, her eyes sporting dark circles that spoke of a recent lack of sleep. "Jaxom? You're out early this morning. Is everything all right at the hold?" Menolly held up her arm, and golden Beauty flew to her, apparently having been lying on Menolly's bed when Jaxom knocked. "Beauty says that Ruth is outside. I guess I ought to apologize now, because that's probably where the rest of my friends have gone." Even as she spoke, Beauty left her to join the others and Ruth.

"Never mind that, Menolly," Jaxom said, shrugging. "Ruth likes them anyway, although how he manages to not get fed up with all of the attention I just don't know." He stopped, peering into the room, hoping to see Sebell within. "Is the Masterharper at home? I need to speak with him. It's important."

"Important enough that I can't serve just as well?" Menolly, a master craftsman in her own right, raised her eyebrows at him in both surprise and slight remonstrance. Jaxom frowned.

"F'lar told me I should speak directly to Sebell," he started, but suddenly wondered if Menolly, who had always been closer to Master Robinton in her own way, wouldn't in fact, serve better for his purpose. "But I suppose it doesn't so much matter, in this case." He paused, and then, stepping forward, took her by the arm, and turned her back towards her room. "You'd better sit down."

Together, the two friends went back into Menolly and Sebell's chambers, and Jaxom stuck out his foot, catching it on the door and pulling it closed behind him. He sat down on the edge of Menolly's bed, crossed his arms over his chest, and wondered for a moment where to start with his unthinkable proposal.

As he pondered, Menolly's bronze Poll popped into existence over their heads, and promptly settled himself next to Jaxom on the bed. His owner turned to the cabinet, and retrieved a bottle of ointment, which she began to rub over Poll's hide with the same careful and deft hands that Jaxom knew to be the authors of so many exquisite verses. He watched her for a moment, perversely fascinated with the movements of those hands, until he realized that she was waiting for him to speak.

"I need you tell me," he said, "if you remember anything…anything terribly distinct about the day that Master Robinton died."

Menolly stopped, stock-still, and then her hands began to shake so violently that Poll started, chirping shrilly as the bottle of ointment knocked against him. He took wing, and flew out of the window, leaving Menolly clutching the bottle to her in a strangely child-like way.

Jaxom put out a hand to console her, sorry that he'd agitated her so. Her next words, however, were startling ones.

"It's about time," she whispered, "that somebody asked me that question." She turned slowly, giving him a long, questioning look. "I almost thought that no one ever would."

"But you see," The Lord Holder started, wanting to prevent her from concocting any of those wild ideas which could drive her to hope for what might never be, "the difficulty is -!"

"I know." Menolly was shaking hr head, her eyes drifting around the room in an idle way. "I know what the difficulties are." She emphasized the word "are," making sure that Jaxom knew that she understood that there was more than one problem with the idea. She understood perfectly, he realized, and maybe she'd been thinking about it for turns, maybe she comprehended the situation better than he did. There had been rumors, turns ago, that Menolly and Robinton were closer than a Master and his journeyman should have been. Jaxom himself had never put any stock in those rumors, and he never would, but he could see now that there had certainly been a deep bond of one kind or other.

"But I can't remember," the harper master was saying, wringing her hands in frustration. "I should remember, it shouldn't be something I can forget, but I…it's not clear enough. Nothing's clear enough from that day. In Faranth's name, nothing but-!" She stopped, and Jaxom was curious what the "but" stood for.

"Sebell, then? F'lar seemed to think that he would be able to give us some sort of…clearer picture." Jaxom frowned, as Menolly shook her head to that, too. "Anyone? There must be someone with a firm enough memory to give us some sort of jumping off point." He couldn't' believe that the entire scheme might be thwarted by the lack of a competent guide.

"I can't remember that day," Menolly almost whispered, "but I can tell you about something that I do remember, very clearly."

"From when?" Jaxom asked.

"From…the time he spent in Cove Hold. After his illness. That I can tell you without trouble, and you and Ruth can't get lost there. I know, I…" Again, she stopped, mid-sentence, and then, briskly, tried again. "I can give you exactly the co-ordinates. Can you tell Ruth to picture what I'm going to relay? No, never mind, better get one of the firelizards to do it."

Menolly held up her arm, and Beauty appeared, her eyes whirling blue with contentment as she settled herself down, not on the arm, but on the shoulder, as she usually did. The little queen looked up at her owner, waiting. "Beauty," murmured Menolly, "I'm going to tell you something, and you're going to help me remember it. Then, we're going to tell Ruth, and Ruth is going to fly there, to what we remember. Do you understand?"

Beauty chirruped. Menolly closed her eyes, and Jaxom was awkwardly conscious of being shut-out of a circle of understanding that was, at this moment, taking place between Menolly, Beauty, and his own dragon.

After several moments, the harper nodded, opening her eyes. Even as she did so, Beauty tucked her nose into Menolly's hair, in a mothering gesture that made Jaxom smile.

_I understand when we are going,_ reported Ruth. _There will be no trouble. It is very clear. But we must be especially careful. _

"Why especially careful?" Jaxom asked.

_We must be careful, and quick, _Ruth replied, _Because Menolly was there, and there is only so much time for us to go when she was not there. _

Jaxom hated talking about times. Like F'lar had said, it was sharding confusing.

* * *

Menolly stood outside of the harper hall, watching Ruth and Jaxom take off and disappear between. She kept waving, as if frozen in the gesture, several moments after they'd gone, until Beauty, still resting on Menolly's shoulder, creeled imperatively, relaying visions of not only her own hunger, but of that of the entire fair.

For once, the harper woman did not respond to her friends' pleas for food. She couldn't' sort out the multitude of confusions in her mind, and she wished she could pin herself down to feeling just one concrete emotion. A harper's mind, Menolly had been taught, must be always calm, collected, prepared. Harpers were not only the teachers of the children, but the chroniclers, the recorders, the ones who passed on, through song and verse, the most important information of their time on the planet. Harpers had no time to be frustrated or distraught. Harpers minds were to be inviolate. Had it been Domick who had told her that? Master Robinton? Maybe it had been old harper Petiron…

Another dragon in the sky caught Menolly's attention. Brown Torimuth was circling, waiting for Menolly to move out of the way and give him room to land. She stepped back hurriedly, and the dragon slowly maneuvered its way down to the earth in front of the Harper Hall. Torimuth's rider, D'lint, gave Menolly a cheery salute as Torimuth touched down, bringing D'lint close enough to recognize the harper.

"Menolly!" Sebell vaulted off of Torimuth's back, swinging a wherhide bag over his shoulder as he descended. "I'm glad you're awake. We're to go to Fort Weyr. N'ton has a commission for us, a song he wants down for the upcoming Fort hatching. He knows there's no one that can do his visions lyrical justice quite like you can." Sebell grinned at her, grasping her limp hands in his as he pulled her to him. "What's drawn you out of bed so early?"

"I heard you leaving," Menolly lied, almost unaware that she was doing it. "It woke me when you and D'lint took off."

"Then you've been up for hours," Sebell replied, contrite. "I'm sorry, I thought we'd been quieter. You seemed pretty deeply asleep when I left you in bed, but I suppose that those nerves of yours are forever attuned to my going." He drew a hand through her hair, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, hoping to draw some of the calm from him that she so desperately needed.

The two harpers walked together back towards Torimuth, who was waiting patiently, his huge tail t witching back and forth against the earth where he lay. "To Fort, then," Menolly said, pulling herself up on to the brown dragon's back. "And a good morning, D'lint. How are things at the Weyr?"

Sebell drew himself up beside her, and, after D'lint had fastened and checked each of the riding straps, Torimuth and his three charges took off into the skies of Pern.


	5. Wrong

**Author's Note: **Thank you to **ginalee**, both for reviewing, and for providing me with the name of Menolly's son! And what a fantastically useful name it is…aheheheh…ahem. Thanks also to **ArwenGreenEyes**, because I was having a terrible day when I got your review and it made my day just enough better to prep this chapter to post today: - ) Thanks.

Am I correct in my belief that it was in The Skies of Pern that Menolly was pregnant, or was that in a previous book?

This is important, cause I gotta get this kid aged correctly. Or else I'll just make it up, but I'd rather get it right.

Just one more thing. In this chapter, we begin to reference things that happened in Harper's Folly, a story which precedes this one in the timeline. You can find it by, uh…well, you can find it on my stories page.

Carry on!

H. S. Shore

**Chapter Five: Wrong**

F'nor was coming out of the lower caverns, swinging a wineskin over his shoulder, when he heard Canth's amused commentary from where the dragon lay sunning himself on his ledge.

_Green Filbrath is being chased by Blue Coroneth,_ Canth notified his rider. _It is early for her to rise._

F'nor shrugged. From the bugles and shrill cries that he could hear from the mating dragons, somewhere overhead, it didn't sound to him like Filbrath agreed with Canth's assessment. Looking up, he caught sight of a flash of green, followed by a streak of blue, as the two creatures tumbled towards each other through the heavens. He didn't have time to stand and watch the mating flight. Brekke would be waiting for him, and he'd grabbed some of the best new wine from the kitchens so that the two of them could at least try to spend a romantic evening together, for what would be the first time in close to a turn. He grinned, realizing that the passions of the green dragon and her paramour would no doubt precipitate the mood.

Suddenly, the brownrider was aware of another sound, not the screaming of the rowdy dragons, but a slow, sharp tapping sound, incessant in its repetitions. He turned, trying to locate the source of the sound, and saw, several dragonlengths away from him, a young boy, probably, by F'nor's mark, no more than 10 or 11 turns of age.

The presence of an adolescent boy outside the Weyr was of no particular concern to F'nor. He saw many of them, and young girls, too, in his day-to-day dealings, seeing as it was so close to hatching time, and there were eggs to be impressed. What alarmed F'nor was the activity in which this boy was engaged. As F'nor watched, he realized what must have been causing the tapping. With his back turned to the brownrider, the boy bent down, and picked up a large, smooth stone. He examined it, and then, taking a step back, hurled it upward with all of his might in the direction of the mating dragon pair. Before that stone had a chance to fall back to earth, the boy had thrown another, and then a third.

"Hey!" F'nor rushed forward, grabbing the boy by the shoulders and turning him forcefully around. A hurled stone such as one of those could never possibly reach high enough to brush the ledge of F'nor's own Weyr, let alone intercept a flying dragon. And yet, there was something repulsive about a child throwing rocks at a dragon…

"What are you doing?" the brownrider asked, putting a hand under the boy's chin and forcing him to turn his face to meet F'nor's. "And who are you? Where are you supposed to be?"

The boy gave F'nor a defiant look in return. "Not doing nuthin. Leave me alone, I'll scream!" He said the words as if the rider should be struck dumb with fear at the threat.

F'nor sighed, allowing the tension in his shoulders to relax as the boy glared at him. This was just a child, a silly little weyrbrat no doubt, maybe trying idly to see how far he could throw. ""Who are you?" F'nor asked again. He would have to say something to the Weyr headwoman,, Hamilla, about keeping better tabs on the activities of the lower caverns whelps. "Hasn't Hamilla told you that you're not supposed to be throwing stones around here? It's dangerous to throw stones, someone could get hurt."

In response, the boy looked up, pointing skyward at green dragon. "I don't like it," he muttered, "Father says that when the dragons do that, they make everyone all wrong. They make everyone go crazy! Dragons shouldn't make people go crazy, dragons are supposed to protect Pern. Right?"

F'nor's heart sank. "Who's your father?" he queried, more harshly than he'd intended.

The lad grinned, drawing himself to his full height in completely childish pride. "Lord Volpire of Lemos," he announced. "I'm gonna impress a bronze dragon, too, so I'm gonna be famous everywhere on Pern!" Then, with a sudden twist of his arm, the boy freed himself and ran full-tilt back towards the Weyr from which F'nor had come.

The dragonrider watched him go, turning the encounter over in his mind as he saw the boy slip back into the Lower Caverns. Lord Volpire of Lemos? The same Lord Volpire who'd been at the Weyr, harassing F'lar, only days ago? F'nor gritted his teeth. Surely, this wasn't his full blooded son. No, F'nor remembered, Lord Volpire's heir was called Gemmin, and was a lad of fifteen turns already. They'd met at a gather at Lemos, two, maybe three turns ago. This boy, then, must be an illegitimate child, the offspring of one of Volpire's women. And he must be a candidate, for that was what he seemed to have been saying, with his quip about impressing a bronze dragon.

F'nor sighed, glancing dolefully up at the ledge of his own Weyr, then down at the wineskin he'd been preparing to present to his weyrmate. He shook his head, worried and distracted by what he'd just seen.

. A son of the hostile Lord Volpire, here, and preparing to stand on the hatching grounds? Throwing rocks at a dragonflight, no less? No matter how badly he wanted to see Brekke, it would have to wait. F'lar needed to be notified of this little development, and soon.

* * *

Jaxom and Ruth burst into the air over Cove Hold, and felt the gentle breezes buffeting them as they circled down to the warm sands of the nearby beaches. It was a breathtakingly beautiful place, Jaxom thought. Or rather, he corrected himself, it had been a beautiful place. It probably still was, but he hadn't traveled to the site of Cove Hold in several turns, not in his time, at any rate.

He remembered with pleasure the days that he had spent here, when he himself had been convalescing from an attack of firehead fever. Shortly after that, Master Robinton and his entire welcoming party ha moved in to share Jaxom's paradise, and he'd been all too eager to leave the place. It was here that he had met Sharra, the only woman that he loved, and here that he had discovered the first real traces of the Ancients. Had that happened already, in this time? Menolly had implied that the moment she had shared with Ruth was after the bustle around Cove Hold had ended. Jaxom certainly hoped so. It would be a lot easier to get the Harper and run if there were few people about to obstruct them.

"Ruth? " Jaxom queried. "I'm going inside. If anyone should come, if…if I should show up, or Menolly, or…yourself, then I need you to tell me, immediately. I don't know what might happen if we see ourselves coming or going, but I don't want to take any chances. If you so much as hear footsteps-!"

_Go_, insisted Ruth, nudging him with his huge nose. _I will call you if there is trouble. Go now_. Even as he thought the command, Ruth nestled down into the sands to wait, the picture of placid unconcern. Jaxom shook his head with admiration. His Ruth was fearless.

The door to the Masterharper's study was slightly ajar, Jaxom noticed, as he passed into the interior of Cove Hold. He tried to quicken his steps without making a sound, and winched when he heard his boots slap against the wood of the polished floorboards. If the door was open, it might mean that someone was there, or had just been there. That wasn't promising.

"You can come in, Menolly," came the all too familiar voice from just within the study. "Although I can't imagine what brought you back so soon."

Jaxom whirled to stare behind him into the quiet of the Hold, expecting to see an alarmed and wide-eyed young Menolly. There was no one there. It dawned on him then that the Harper must have interpreted his steps as those of the harper girl, and he tried to relax, tried to regain his focus.

"Menolly?" The Master called again. "Come in, girl, just don't stand there hovering like a mother wherry." Jaxom heard a creak as the Harper rose from his chair and, frozen with uncertainty, stood stock-still as Robinton himself appeared around the door.

The Masterharper looked much more vigorous than he had when Jaxom had last seen him. Then again, the Lord Holder realized, he was, in fact seeing a younger version of the man, turns before the discovery of AIVAS and the Ancients. His hair was the same aged silver-gray that it had always been, and his eyes were as piercingly sincere as Jaxom remembered them. The slight lilt to his walk that he had inherited in the turns before his death, however, wasn't present, and he seemed just a bit more robust than Jaxom remembered. The Harper leaned against the frame of the door, his wine glass balanced gently in one bony-fingered hand as he turned to see Jaxom awaiting him. Zair, Robinton's bronze firelizard, flitted out of the study in pursuit to join his owner, and perched himself on the Master's shoulder to peer down at Jaxom with curiously whirling eyes.

Robinton's eyes widened almost imperceptibly as he first noticed Jaxom. The stare was a blank one, and Jaxom wondered confusedly if he should say something. But what could he say? How could he simply announce to the Masterharper who he was, when the younger, more recognizable Lord Jaxom had no doubt left the Hold only a few days previously? It was impossible to make his case plausible, he realized with chagrin, and so he stood there, returning the Harper's gaze in helpless silence.

Master Robinton broke that blank tableau first. "My good Lord Jaxom," he murmured, making a slight bow, slowly enough so as not to spill the half-full glass of wine. "The beard suits you." Then he lapsed again into contemplative silence.

Jaxom belatedly realized that it was his turn to speak. "I…"he stammered. "I…Masterharper." He thought about bowing in return, but something about it felt so foolish that he refrained. "I know that this…is very odd, almost unthinkably so, but I…" he trailed off again, searching for words. "I need you to listen to me, as receptively as you can, because it's hard, I think, to make anyone understand it."

"How many turns, Jaxom?" interrupted Robinton, almost conversationally. When Jaxom stared at him, Robinton chuckled. "Oh yes, it's quite apparent. If I couldn't determine your advanced turns from your altered appearance and the abundance of that exceedingly manly facial hair, I can at least see the cold of between in your eyes. No, you are not the Lord Jaxom whom I know and have grown so fond of. Or rather, you are, but you're a good deal farther along in your life than he was. That is," he corrected himself, "Than he is." He stopped, passing a hand through his hair in what was almost a nervous gesture. "So what have you come all of these turns to tell me? You'd best do so quickly, for my journeyman's never away from me long, and I imagine that you'd prefer not to be caught here." Pausing, he raised an eyebrow. "Well? Speak, lad…I mean, my Lord."

Suddenly, Jaxom was filled with a desire to have this interview over. There was something painful at the back of his eyes, something that he couldn't seem to dispel. "The Weyrleader needs you," he managed to say, forcing the words out in the face of his unsurety. "F'lar, and Lessa, and I, we need you. You need to go…now. We need to go, together. Back to Benden Weyr."

"Back to Benden Weyr?" Robinton put a slight but significant emphasis on the first word. "You mean forward, I think. Surely they can summon me much more effectively from their own time, and I'm sure that I wouldn't object to being called. Why come so many turns back to fetch me? Do you need a younger man to suit your need? A younger Master Robinton?" He snorted, shaking his head, and holding up a hand in a gesture of helplessness. "I suppose I'd never thought of dragons as agents to the fountain of youth, but..."

"We can't call you in our time," Jaxom started, and then realized that he didn't know how to convey this next alarming bit of information. Decisively, he rushed on, determined to get the thought out in the open where the Harper could deal with it before they ran out of time. "Because you're not there, Master." Jaxom swallowed hard. "You're not in our time. Not…not anymore."

Robinton looked puzzled for a short moment, and then his face assumed a mask of horrified surprise. Zair erupted from his shoulder, shrilly screaming his the displeasure that was mirrored in Robinton's facea. The man himself turned abruptly away from Jaxom, and the Lord Holder stepped forward, putting a hesitant hand on the Harper's shoulder, feeling the firm reality of the older man's arm beneath the thin harper-blue tunic. "Master Robinton?" He was half worried that something had gone wrong, that he'd come back during the Harper's illness after all, that Robinton was suffering an attack and that Jaxom, being there, had brought it about in the most…untimely fashion.

There was a sickeningly long silence between them, and the room seemed to echo with the very lack of sound. Robinton wrung his hands together, expelling what seemed to be the longest imaginable breath, before he started to speak again, his voice low and tinged with a surprised resignation that Jaxom hadn't expected.

"No man should ever know the circumstances of his own death, Jaxom," Robinton murmured. "It's not something that we are meant to know. It's…simply wrong." He paused, and Jaxom waited, devoid of words with which to combat this revelation. "Why, every man and woman on this planet needs hope to live, and how can one have hope if one knows, from the mouths of those that were there, exactly how and when  
he or she is going to give up his place in the world?" Shaking his head, he took a step back, and his back bumped up against the wall as he almost retreated from Jaxom's look. "Let's never speak of it again, I beg you. Not ever, not for any reason. It's cruel to ask me to think about it."

Jaxom shuddered, imagining what it must be like to learn of your own fate, and to realize that you could do nothing about it. Then he shook his head, dispelling that thought. "But there is something you can do about it," he said, thinking out loud. "This is the chance that half of the people on Pern would take without a moment's consideration. Why, you can-!"

"Jaxom!" Robinton's all too familiar bellow, tinged, this time with trepidation, filled the room, and Jaxom's ears rang. "I asked you," Robinton continued, much more gently, "to never speak of it again, and I meant what I said."


	6. The Argument of Time

**Chapter Six: The Argument of Time**

As the reverberations of Robinton's commandment died away, Jaxom heard Ruth calling urgently from his post on the sands.

_The sky darkens_, he reminded Jaxom, _and Menolly did warn us to be quick. Console the Harper. He will come_. After a moment's pause, he added, thoughtfully, _Tell him honestly. We need him because he is a reasonable man. He will understand. Be patient, but hurry._

Detaching himself from his dragon's thoughts, Jaxom saw that Robinton had come away from the wall, still obviously shaken, but with the color returning to his gaunt face. Sighing deeply, The Masterharper fixed Jaxom with an almost sheepish smile. "Forgive me, Jaxom," he said, with a little, rueful laugh. "It's hard to teach new tricks to an old dragon, and I, very much the old dragon, have trouble dealing with this discovery. But you came here to tell me something, and so you'd best do it before I lose my nerve, and embarrass myself further by turning my back on you and running for the door…for I'm afraid I will if you give me longer to think about it."

In that case, thought Jaxom, he'd best take Ruth up on his advice. "F'lar sent me, Masterharper," he began, "because the holders…our holders, from our time, have begun to grumble about the practices of the Weyr. No," and he shook his head, correcting himself, "more than grumble. They've held a conclave to discuss what is to be done concerning the dissatisfaction in the holds and crafts with Weyr practices and the…tendencies of the weyrbred."

"That's happened more than once in my time and yours," muttered Robinton. "The holds grumble, it's what they have always done."

"It's different, sir," Jaxom insisted doggedly. "There's such a disjunction between the holds and the Weyrs that the holds have announced that they won't allow the Weyrs any more of their young people, so that the Weyrs will have to turn entirely inwards for their candidates. There are mutterings that Weyr policy has to change, just like the rest of Pern has changed, and that the holders have accepted enough of the innovation of the weyrfolk without having to deal with their wanton qualities." He grimaced. "At least, that's how Lord Volpire puts it, he and Lord Taffen."

Robinton raised his eyebrows, throwing up a hand to stop the flow of Jaxom's speech. "Lord Volpire?" he asked, pointedly reminding Jaxom that he wasn't familiar with developments in Jaxom's own time. "Lord Taffen? And what innovations, exactly, have the weyrfolk made so onerous to the rest of Pern?"

Jaxom shook his head, waving that question away with a weary hand. "It would take turns to tell you, sir," he insisted. "And more patient, resourceful men than myself."

"A fair enough statement, Lord Jaxom," assented Robinton, "sine I imagine that those events were turns in the making, and can't be glossed over in a few minutes, no matter how eager and curious your audience." He bit his lip, and took one long look over his shoulder at the open door to his study. "A shame that I'll be leaving this pleasant place," he remarked over his shoulder. "and I won't begin to hope that I'll find it in the same state in your time. There's nothing to be done for that, however, and with all new beginnings come sad farewells." He glanced down at Zair, who chattered, almost sympathetically.

Jaxom blinked. "You'll come, then?" He was almost afraid to ask, worried that he'd misunderstood the comment. Robinton nodded.

"I've already said," he murmured, with a slight nod of the head, "I never turn down a summons from Benden, no matter where… or when they may be in need of me."

Apparently, that closed the matter, for the Masterharper crossed in front of Jaxom without sparing a backward glance. He stepped through the door, and out into the muggy Southern afternoon, apparently expecting Jaxom to follow.

_Good, _Ruth crooned approvingly in Jaxom's head. _Now, we must-oh! _The dragon exclaimed, and then went abruptly silent. As Jaxom took to his heels to meet his alarmed dragon, Ruth spoke again, his thoughts full of his startled worry. _A dragon, in the sky! We must go! Run, Jaxom! _

Jaxom ran. He ran out the door of the hold, not bothering to kick it closed behind him as he pelted towards the place on the sand where Ruth waited, raised to his haunches, his head pointed up towards the dusky sky. Robinton was running as well, with Zair zipping along just above his head, The man was running too slowly, Jaxom realized with a grimace, to reach Ruth in time to escape the notice of the approaching blue dragon and his rider. With a desperate rush of speed, Jaxom overtook the Masterharper, grabbing the older man by the arm and propelling full-tilt towards the white dragon.

The few dragonlengths that lay between the Lord Holder and his dragon seemed to stretch out in front of the two running men, until the few minutes that it took to reach Ruth began to feel like turns. The blue dragon was wheeling closer and closer downward in the skies, and Jaxom could see that there were two people astride the dragon, one of whom had apparently noticed them. The indistinct figure of the second rider was waving frantically, and calling out in words that Jaxom was unable to determine.

As they reached Ruth, the dragon knelt low in the sand, allowing Robinton to swing his long leg up over Ruth's back. Jaxom adjusted the riding straps around the Masterharper, before taking his own seat in front, and giving Ruth the signal to take to the skies.

Just as the two men and the small dragon were high enough in the heavens for Jaxom to take them between, Jaxom turned turned his head to take one last fearful look at the approaching blue. His stomach plummeted. Harper Menolly was all but standing on the flying dragon's flank, balanced so precariously that the dragon was hampered in his flight by his need to support her. She was yelling to them, one arm outstretched towards her Master.

"Ruth!" Jaxom all but screamed, and even before could give the command, Ruth took Jaxom, Robinton, and himself into the blissfully lonely cold of between. Jaxom was vaguely aware that just before they had winked out, he had seen Zair, crying with distress, flapping his smaller wings frantically in an effort to keep up.

* * *

"No, F'nor," F'lar muttered with a distracted frown. "I wasn't aware."

Lessa let out a noise that was half-sigh, half-bark of derision as she slumped against Ramoth's couch. "We weren't aware," she added, "but we should have been at least prepared for such a tactic. It shouldn't surprise me that old Volpire wants to have a spy in the Weyr."

"Now, Lessa," F'lar admonished her, holding up a hand to make himself heard, "I'd hardly assume that a small child can be called a spy. We have no reason to believe that-!"

"We have every reason to believe it," Lessa insisted, glaring first at F'nor, and then at her weyrmate. "And if you put off accepting it, or decide not to believe it then you're doing each and every one of us, and yourself a great disservice. It's time we admitted amongst ourselves that this isn't a petty problem. This isn't a little nuisance, as I've called it myself, on occasion." She shook her head, responding to some thought of her own that the other two present were not privy to. "We've all been foolish, and yet it can't possibly be too late to…dissuade the lords from maintaining their peevish and altogether ridiculous grudge against Weyr customs."

The look F'nor gave her was both rueful and admiring. "I'll grant that we can't hide from it any longer," he said, "but it's tough to make a case against a ten year old brat." He shook his head, shuddering. "Throwing stones at dragons…"

"It bespeaks an attitude in the child that could only be fostered by his parents own hatred for the Weyrs," muttered F'lar, nodding slowly. "A disturbing development, but nothing that we didn't already know."

"One thing's for sure," quipped Lessa, "that creature isn't going to stand on the hatching grounds, not with my Ramoth's eggs. We're sending him home. Tonight! F'nor?"

F'nor didn't need to be asked twice. Bowing courteously to the concerned pair, he turned on his heel, and left the room, heading for the candidate barracks.

Lessa watched him go, her lips pursed in thought. Perched on the very edge of Ramoth's couch, she ran a hand through her tangle of hair, ripping though a knot with one broken-nail. Feeling the nail catch, Lessa glanced down at her hand, and expelled a frustrated breath. It had been a disgustingly long time since she'd had a day to herself, a day to take care of both her own beauty concerns, and those of Ramoth.

_I am fine, _commented Ramoth, nuzzling her rider with her huge golden head. _But I am not clean…_ There was a wistful note in the dragon's tone, and Lessa turned, wrapping her arms around the shimmering neck with a good deal of contrition.

"I'm sorry, dear one," Lessa murmured. "It's just been so hectic lately…what with these nasty whispers at the conclave, and now this…spying fiasco."

Ramoth projected the dragon equivalent of a resigned shrug, and she wrapped her tail possessively around Lessa, so that the small woman's feet lifted off the ground as she feel back against her dragon. _Well,_ the dragon replied, the very epitome of reason, _When you have finished being the savior of human and dragonkind, I expect to be properly oiled._

"Mnementh's hungry," F'lar cut in, nodding at the queen dragon, "and Ramoth's looking a bit dull herself. We'd best remember not to neglect that particular concern, or we'll find ourselves lacking the only allies we seem to have…" He sighed.

_I am always your ally,_ Ramoth insisted, and F'lar didn't need to hear her to understand what the look in her rainbow eyes meant. He chuckled, and reached over to run a hand over his queen's eye ridges. She rumbled with complacent pleasure, and Lessa smiled. They were a happy sort of family, the four of them. They were growing old together, slowly, gently, despite all of the crises they'd been through, and no matter how many more turns they had in each other's company, they would be comfortable ones. That is, they would be if the lord holders didn't shatter their fragile peace with their whinings for a change in customs. Why couldn't Lessa be allowed to live out her days just the way dragonriders always had? Hadn't she done enough for the Weyrs, for the holds, for Pern?

_If it was enough, _decided Ramoth, _You would be bored. So would I, and so would Mnementh. It is better this way. We will go out flaming, my own. That is what I want. It is what you want, too. _Lessa didn't know if that was so. It certainly didn't feel like it was what she wanted anymore.

"Lessa." F'lar's arms were around her, and she could feel the sinews of his arms, protruding as he grew more stringy and drawn with age and exhaustion. "It will come right. They must see reason, and they will see it when their young people beg and plead with them to come to the Weyrs, just as they always have. It is hardly time to give up hope on this particular score."

Mnementh's bugle from the ledge alerted F'lar. _Green Filbrath arrives, and she is angry! _Mnementh himself was clearly bothered by the state of the approaching dragon. _There have been…incidents. _

Incidents? F'lar frowned. Before he had a chance to reply to his dragon, however, and to question Mnementh about exactly what kind of incidents he meant, Lessa spoke up into the silence that had arisen in the room from the dragon's mental conversations with their riders. "Where's Jaxom got to?" she murmured, her forehead creasing as she glanced at the door, as if expecting the Lord Holder to waltz in, his precious and anticipated company in tow. F'lar knew that she was thinking of how ill advised the excursion had been, and he tried to turn his mind away from his own apprehensions. He couldn't focus on any such far-fetched hopes at this moment in time. He would worry about that when – well. He would worry about it. Some time later. Jaxom would be all right…wouldn't he?


	7. Blind Man's Bluff

**Author's Quick Note: **Hello loves.

If you're reading, raise your hand. Good! Now, if you'd be so kind, take that hand and put it on your keypad. Type "I'm reading!" into the review box, and press send. See H.S. Shore smile and update the story, because she appreciated that gesture so much:-D Er. Pretty please, with sugar and gumdrops and redfruit on top?

**Chapter Seven: Blind Man's Bluff**

Jaxom directed Ruth to come out of between a good hour after dragon and rider had left Menolly standing in front of the Harper Hall, in their own time. He wasn't surprised to see that the girl wasn't waiting for them, as she'd no doubt gone about her own business in the interim. Jaxom thrilled with pleasure at the realization that he would be able to display his achievement to Menolly, before she had a chance to learn of it from anyone else. And to Sebell, too! What a fantastic shock it would be, for both of them, for everyone, in fact, in the Hall.

It was only then that the full magnitude of that same endeavor hit Jaxom, and he expelled a breath, which he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He and Ruth had done more than even Lessa had, in her famous flight between passes of the red star. He had gone back, to a distinct moment in time, and had not only returned successfully with both his own hide and that of his dragon intact, but had brought a dead man back to life. He'd isolated a moment in time, and changed it from another point in the line of events that would ultimately lead to it, preventing the demise of one of Pern's most beloved heroes of history. He himself, Jaxom of Ruatha, was a hero in his own right.

_For all the good that does us,_ murmured Ruth, and Jaxom wasn't sure if dragon's could express the kind of cynicism that he had thought he'd read into that tone.

The knowledge of the insanity of the feat he'd just performed unsettled and invigorated the lord, and he turned to stare, first at his dragon, and then at the Masterharper, who hadn't yet dismounted. Instead, Robinton's eyes were fixed on the entrance to the Harper Hall, his Harper Hall.

"Well, here we are," Jaxom said, unnecessarily.

"Here we are," echoed Robinton, nodding his head slowly as he processed that idea. He still made no move to leave the pair, and Jaxom put out a hand to help him down from Ruth's back. Robinton ignored the hand, but kept looking at the Harper Hall, his eyes thoughtful, and his thoughts indiscernible. "Who," he asked, after a moment, "is Masterharper, now? Sebell, still, I hope." He turned his questioning gaze on Jaxom, who nodded emphatically, hoping to alleviate some of the uncertain confusion in the Harper's manner.

"Sebell's been Masterharper for turns," he informed him, "and they're an unstoppable pair. He and Menolly, I mean. They're a veritable powerhouse of music, those two, and all of Pern benefits." He paused, then added quickly, "not to imply that we haven't felt your loss…ah…that we haven't missed you." Jaxom fumbled to avoid the topic of Robinton's fate, as the Harper had requested, wondering how Robinton would fare when the rest of Pern became all too eager to talk about that very sensitive and dangerous subject.

"No offense taken, Lord Jaxom," the Harper murmured, apparently totally disinterested in Jaxom's inner struggle with word choice. "Menolly, you said?"

"Yes sir. Master Menolly…Master Songcrafter Menolly, as she is, now, is no end of a help to the Harper and his Hall."

"And Domick?" Robinton sounded like he knew the answer already, but Jaxom provided it anyway.

"Passed on, Master. Turns ago."

Robinton thought about that for a moment, but it didn't seem to strain him any more than was to be expected. He must have known, Jaxom realized, that he'd encounter such things when he came forward in time, must have realized that there would be…holes in the places where the people in his life had been. It was only to be expected…and yet…what an expectation.

"Who else?" Robinton murmured, refocusing his eyes and fixing them on Jaxom's face for the first time in the course of the conversation.

"Domick, and…Shonagar, sir." Jaxom tried to remember any other names of prominent Hall masters that he'd forgotten, those who'd been gone for turns, that Jaxom hadn't spared a thought for in far too long.

"Morshall?" asked Robinton, "and Oldive?"

Jaxom shook his head. "Quite living sir," and he grimaced, remembering the last time he'd visited the Harper Hall, before he'd arrived there this morning with Ruth. "And the old man likes to make himself heard these days, for all that he's completely lost his ability to sing, or even to play."

"A hard saying," Robinton replied, but he smiled a little bit, even as he rebuked the lord. "I assume we're referring to Master Morshall, then, as I haven't known Oldive to be a garrulous singer. I suppose, however that could have changed…"

"Yes sir," Jaxom agreed. "I meant Master Morshall. He's losing his vision with age, but he's retained all of his…character."

Robinton nodded. "I'd like to speak to him," he said, and started forward with a sudden decision, so that Jaxom had to scamper like a weyrbrat to fall into step with him. "Although, perhaps," the Harper added, after a moment's consideration, "Oldive might be a better choice. Is he at the Hall?"

"Yes sir." The whiterider was relieved. He avoided the cantankerous Harper Master Morshall like thread spores, ever since he'd accidentally awoken the man from his rest when he'd called upon Menolly at the wrong time of day. He had no great urge to see the man, and didn't' believe that Morshall was exactly the right person to whom to introduce the shock that Robinton's totally unprecedented arrival would no doubt be.

Robinton led them unerringly through the passages of the Harper Hall, which were, and Jaxom thanked the egg for it, blessedly devoid of stragglers. As they turned a corner around one of the Master's studies, however, a little blue firelizard, no doubt Menolly's Uncle, popped into existence above Robinton's head. The Masterharper held up a hand to the creature, offering a perch, but Uncle, rather than alighting, flitted between again so quickly that he was nothing but a bright blue blur. That seemed to disturb Robinton more than anything else had on this trip so far, and he spun on Jaxom, pointing up at the place where the firelizard had been.

"Zair," he said, looking about him, as if expecting to have overlooked the little bronze, and to see him now, hovering somewhere about Jaxom and the Harper. "He did come with us, didn't he?" He paused, closing his eyes for a moment, and then shook his head, with dazed regret. "I can't feel his thoughts. He didn't follow Ruth between, when we took off."

Jaxom shook his head emphatically, placing a hand on the older man's shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. "He'll find us," the lord insisted, not feeling the firmness of his own alleged convictions. "Firelizards can follow between times. Menolly's have done it before, and you've seen it yourself. He'll find us once he gets in touch with Ruth. Actually," and Jaxom smiled hopefully, "I'll ask Ruth to call him. Firelizards love Ruth. But you knew that." He paused. "I think."

_Ruth? _ Jaxom called to his dragon, but Ruth was, as usual, one step ahead of him.

_I am searching, _ the white dragon replied, sounding worried, _But Zair does not hear me. I cannot find him. _

_He's not lost between, is he, lost trying to find Robinton all these turns away? _ a cold feeling had settled into the pit of the Lord Holder's stomach, and Jaxom glanced at Robinton, who was still standing in one place, trying to touch his friend's mind, wherever he was.

_I hope not,_ murmured Ruth, and the answer wasn't at all reassuring.

"Ruth'll find him," Jaxom continued to assure the Harper, despite the doubts in both his and his dragon's minds. "He's looking for him now. Won't be long. You wait and see, I'll-!"

Before Jaxom had a chance to finish his comforting words, they could hear the chattering of a lizard again, and Robinton whirled eagerly towards the sound. From around the corner appeared the elderly, stooping figure of Master Oldive, blue Uncle hovering just over his head, his eyes whirling red with agitation as she flitted towards the Masterharper. It took Oldive several moments to reach the place where Jaxom and Robinton stood, and he reached out his hand, sifting in the air for the human presence that he sensed before him.

Robinton walked forward, and clasped the old healer's fingers in his own, laying his other hand on top of Oldive's to close the other man's grip around his own. They stood there for a moment, a strange tableau of age and confusion, as Robinton waited for the other man to speak first. Soon, the healer did, and his words were slow, methodical, though chosen in the softly careful way that Oldive's always were.

"I can't imagine that anyone else could have those same fingers," the old man murmured, turning Robinton's hand over in his own so that he could trace the knuckle lines with one precise finger, "or that same loosely commanding grip that I thought I'd entirely forgotten. I suppose I haven't forgotten them after all, then, and yet…" he shook his head, more to himself than to his audience, and his laugh was a faint, almost feminine chuckle, self-conscious and remonstrative. "I thought I'd never lose the ability to recognize and identify my guests, and apparently even that's lost to me now. Sirs," and he inclined his head towards Jaxom, although the Lord Holder hadn't spoken, "you come at a crisis. I've genuinely lost the ability to see, now, for the first time. And here I thought I was blind turns ago. Now, I know what it really feels like."

"You don't give yourself enough credit, my friend," Robinton whispered, pressing the other's hand a second time.

Oldive's head flew up, and he met Robinton's stare with blank eyes and a half-open, incredulous mouth. He dropped the Harper's hand, and then, as if regretting the gesture, grabbed it up again, holding it close to his face and running his own over it, shaking his head all the while. "Master Robinton," he breathed, and it was neither a question, nor a statement, but an incredulous half-certainty on the old man's lips. "You've…come back to us, after all, just like she said you would."

The words sounded strange to Jaxom, who wondered who the "she" could be. Lessa? After all, he'd announced his intentions to Lessa first, but then…yes, the "she" Oldive spoke of must in fact be Menolly. But Menolly had promised not to speak of the mission to anyone. Surely she wouldn't have broken that promise so glibly and so easily as to inform the first Master she saw.

"Some of us thought you'd never resurface," Oldive was saying, a slow smile spreading over his face, turning the sagging creases of his lips upward in the dawning of his joy. "After all, it's been such a long time, and we were sure that, after all of these turns, something must have happened…some people…some forgot, the young, they forgot, because after all, they were too young to remember." He shook his head again. "But you're here after all. They should have known you'd never leave the Hall like that, not for good, not forever."

"Leave the Hall?" Robinton craned his neck over his shoulder to give Jaxom a questioning look. "and where did I go, when I left the Hall?"

Oldive frowned, arching an eyebrow. "I couldn't tell you that, Masterharper," he replied. "Only you know where you went…and I'd be eager to hear of it, if you are so inclined as to tell us the story." There was a tinge of irritation in his voice, and he gently let go of Robinton's hand, so that it dropped against Robinton's thigh. "We'd all, I think, be pleased of an explanation…and I think many explanation's are in order. Men don't…they don't just disappear into thin air, don't just disappear between without a word or a gesture. And yet no one's ever been able to explain what happened to you. One day you were convalescing at that beautiful Southern paradise, and the next…you were gone."

The knot that had been forming in Jaxom's stomach ever sine they'd discovered Zair to be missing was increasing now, until it felt like a stone that weighed him down. Disappeared? The Harper hadn't ever disappeared, and certainly not from Cove Hold. He'd been there when Jaxom had gone to collect him, had he not?"

"Oh," murmured Robinton. "Oh, I see." Then, with more aplomb than Jaxom felt capable of, Robinton took the healer by the shoulders, and nodded decisively. "I suppose I do owe you an explanation, then. And while I tell you the circumstances, you can tell me a few things that I feel like I should know."


	8. Brookebound

**Author's Note: **Yay! Thank you to **dkreader** to whom I dedicate this chapter. **Dkreader** responded to my plea, and reviewed to say "I'm reading!" Was that so hard: - )

**Chapter Eight: Brookebound **

Menolly left Sebell alone at Fort Weyr, and requested the assistance of R'lesh and his green Camieth, asking them to take her to Brookebound Sea Hold, across the water on the Southern Continent.

Brookebound was a new Hold, established in the past turn by the widowed Lady Audiva, formerly the bride of successful Sea Holder Vidarian. The Hold was named for the fact that Audiva had found the place when she had followed a brook from inland on the continent out to where it reached into the sea. In an admirably short time, Lady Audiva had transformed the Hold into a thriving fishing post and sea-port, one at which Menolly had spent several calming days away from the Hall. Audiva had been her only girlfriend, in her days at the Harper Hall, and some such bonds, forged in childhood, are never broken.

It was for this reason that Menolly chose to seek Audiva out at this particular point in time, feeling that she sorely needed someone to talk to about something other than business or even music. Green Camieth deposited the woman just upwards of the beach, courteously dipping her forearm low and allowing Menolly to dismount without difficulty.

"I'll only be a little while," Menolly told R'lesh, as she patted Camieth's flank gratefully. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I wish…" she trailed off, honestly embarrassed to ask this accommodating dragonrider any further favors.

R'lesh shrugged, nodding and jerking his head at the high, imposing doors of Brookebound. "I'll wait for you," he assured her, "but don't take forever and a turn. I've no problem taking in some sun on the sands, but N'ton will expect me before the day's over, and I've duties to the Weyr that I can't shirk."

Menolly assured him that she really wouldn't be too long, and, to make sure she kept that promise, all but ran up to the gates of Brookebound, slowing hr pace as she reached the entrance guard, and attempting to regain some of the decorum that she'd lost in her hasty arrival.

"I've come to see Lady Audiva," she announced, smiling at the exhausted looking sentry. "Is she in?"

"I know who you've come to see," the sentry replied, with a wry smile, "and I know you well enough, Master Menolly. She'll see you, even when she'll see no one else. Go along up, then." He paused, and then added, almost hesitantly, "and my regards to Master Sebell, as well. I met him…must have been a full turn ago, now, at a Istan gather, and he was the most pleasant man I've ever had the honor of listening to, if you don't mind my saying so, quite so bluntly. He shouldn't remember me, I daresay, but he's a hard man to forget."

Funny, Menolly thought, even as she assured the sentry that she'd pass on his greetings. Funny, because she'd heard Masterharper Robinton described much the same way, by a good number of people, herself being one of them. Sebell would be pleased to hear that, and he'd make the comparison as easily as she did. He'd be honored to know that he could be classed as highly as his beloved Master…and hers.

The Lady of Brookebound, when Menolly entered, was walking closely behind a young girl, who was clutching a huge bowl of klah to her chest. Audiva followed the girl's steps so doggedly that it seemed both of them were worried that he might drop the bowl, and, even as Menolly watched, the girl stumbled. Audiva deftly caught her by the shoulders, pulling her upright just in time to prevent the hot liquid from splashing on the floorstones. Menolly couldn't help but giggle at the motherly display, and Audiva, hearing her, turned. A smile lit up the Lady Sea Holder's face as she saw her friend, and she strode over to her, leaving her young charge to fend for herself and the klah alone.

"Master Menolly," Audiva called, reaching out to clasp her friend's hands in her own. "You haven't been here in so very long, I was almost afraid that that Masterharper of yours was working you too hard to get away." She paused, a frown creasing her face as she peered into Menolly's eyes. "And maybe he is, at that. You look awful. I mean," she corrected herself quickly, "you look as lovely as you ever have, but so thin…and so tired." She rolled her eyes, gesturing vaguely at the heavens. "It's that nightmare of the Lord Holders, isn't it, that's kept you so on your toes."

"Actually," murmured Menolly, grateful for the other woman's genuine concern, "we've been little called upon by either…faction, if you will, to deal with that particular issue at the moment." That fact bothered Menolly, although she tried to hide it. Why shouldn't the Masterharper of Pern and his Hall be summoned to assist when both the Weyrs and the holds so greatly needed them? "I haven't been sleeping, is all."

"You don't need to tell me that," Audiva agreed sourly, "I can see it in your eyes. One thing you never did learn to do was to take proper care of yourself, Harper Menolly, and I've never been able to convince you that your needs should come first. I don't' suppose Sebell recognizes that any better than you do. You're a disgustingly philanthropic pair. It would worry me to tears if I hadn't seen you endure far worse."

The two women climbed the stairs together, towards Audiva's own chambers. The Lady Holder seemed pleased to finally leave the kitchens, and Menolly wasn't surprised. Audiva had recently decided to take it upon herself to foster girls from other holds and crafts, so as to bring them up to be able to take over authoritative positions of their own, one day. It was exhausting work, and Audiva had never had the chance to be a mother. She wasn't used to that sort of patient, cajoling work, although she'd always been sensitive enough with Menolly's own children.

"Who was the girl?" Menolly asked, pantomiming a large bowl of klah. Audiva groaned. "Catrice," she sighed, "is a very sweet little thing, but that's the only that can be said for her, and that's that. She's neither intelligent, nor dextrous, nor particularly skillful in any of the arts or crafts that I've seen her try her hand at."

"Everyone's god at something," Menolly insisted, with a hopeful smile. "Does she have a voice?"

"I wouldn't dream of burdening you, of all people," Audiva retorted. "You've got enough on your hands as it is." She smiled, then, her expression softening slightly. "And how are those two, by the way? I'm sorry I didn't ask earlier. Robse was growing well the last time I saw him. He'll turn nine turns old next month, if I remember correctly."

Menolly grinned. Her first son with Sebell was a delightful child, and the pride of her days, but he grew more out than up in recent turns. Only eight turns old, he had plenty of time to correct his stature, and Menolly didn't pay it much heed. She would not, however, quite describe it as "growing well." Audiva was kind to shape it in just that light. She wondered, a bit regretfully, if she shouldn't have brought Robse along with her this time. He so rarely saw the woman that Menolly affectionately termed his "Aunt Audiva," and she enjoyed spending time with a child that didn't expect her to correct and school his or her every move. "You're right about that," agreed Menolly, grimacing ruefully. "Nine turns indeed. He's so old, and it feels so sudden."

Audiva snorted. "You're still a young thing yourself," she insisted, and Menolly raised an eyebrow at her.

"You're the same age as I am," she reminded Audiva, "and we're neither of us the girls that we used to be."

"You might as well be!" Audiva gave Menolly a frankly envious look. "You've always been young, and you'll always be young, no matter how many turns you have under that harper belt of yours. I suppose it's the music that makes you so timeless, that and all of the stories you'll need to live long to tell. Me, I'll age like any other woman, drift away into decrepitude only to listen to your singing when I'm unable to croak myself."

Menolly decided she wanted to turn away from that subject, somewhat appalled by the casual way that her friend discussed her prospective future. "Lemira's just begun to speak her first words,"

"Aha!" Audiva looked triumphant. "So that's why you look so terribly exhausted. The little one's been keeping you awake at night with her newfound ability to babble." When Menolly shook her head, Audiva leaned forward, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "Well, if it's not Lemira, then maybe it is your husband overworking you after all, and after the appropriate hours, too." She grinned a lusty grin that anyone who didn't know her would hardly have expected from the stately Lady Holder.

Menolly couldn't help but laugh, wondering to herself why it was that the idea of intimate bedroom moments with Sebell didn't' make her blush the way it should. He was certainly attentive enough to her whenever he had the time to be, and Menolly couldn't possibly complain about his skills on that score. She was grateful when he took the time to spend those romantic evenings with her, pleased when his virility caught her unawares. She couldn't remember, however, the last time she'd thought of bedroom gaiety as anything remarkable, however, and she couldn't' even summon the semblance of a twitter. Menolly supposed that as you got used to marriage, such things became comfortably commonplace and acceptably worked in to the routine of love.

"No," she replied, "it's not that, either."

"I suppose it wouldn't be, girl," murmured with a sly smile. "Nothing could tire you." Then, when Menolly didn't laugh at her jibe, Audiva's smile faded, and she cocked her head inquisitively to one side, almost, Menolly noticed, the way Beauty did when the firelizard queen was confused or unsure. "What is it, Menolly? There's obviously something keeping you up at night, and if it's not your children, or your husband…is it a new song?" Audiva started to smile, but Menolly dispelled that thought with a sigh. "Well then, are you going to tell me, or are you going to sit there and tantalize me with your melancholy sighing?"

Now that she thought about it, Menolly had no idea how to tell Audiva about what it was that had been plaguing her. The only thing that she was careful not to share with her friend was her memories of those perfect days at Cove Hold, days that she'd never be able to forget, and days that she'd promised Masterharper Robinton she'd remember. If she told Audiva the truth about the dreams she'd been having, explained to the woman the way that she couldn't shake the images of her former Master from her mind, Audiva might laugh. Worse, she might be disgusted, and turn away from Menolly's confidences, declaring that she'd never have been so disloyal to her husband in such a way. And yet, Menolly wasn't disloyal. Master Robinton had been gone for turns, and Menolly couldn't help the way her mind drifted, couldn't' change her own thoughts, no matter how much she willed herself to think of something else. Just recently, she'd felt at peace with herself, with the Harper Hall, and with her family, taking such joy in Sebell, Robse, and Lemira that she'd had very little time to think of anything but them and the music that governed her life on Pern. Yet, in just the past sevenday, it had started all over again. How could she explain that turmoil to Audiva?

And yet the Lady Sea Holder, too, had loved and lost in her own turn. Lord Vidarian, Audiva's one and only true love, had been taken from them by a sailing accident only three, maybe four turns ago. She'd managed to carry on, to found her own Sea Hold, to make her own life without him. Did Audiva, too, have nightmares?

Menolly desperately wanted to ask the girl that question, so much that she opened her mouth to voice it. She realized just in time that she couldn't ask, that Audiva would always be a much stronger woman than she was. No one knew that better than Menolly herself. Audiva wouldn't be prone to the same disturbed fantasies that Menolly was, and she'd never have made that promise not to forget things that Robinton had so urged her to put from her mind. Audiva was too wise to have put herself in that position, and so how could she sympathize with Menolly's weakness?

"There's nothing to tell," she responded belatedly to Audiva's query. "I'd tell you if I could, but I think the concerns of my life would bore you to tears."

"I doubt it, Harper Menolly." Audiva gave the other woman a shrewd, searching look. "I don't think I'd be bored at all by your story."

Uncomfortable, Menolly cleared her throat, and tried to think of something else to say to assuage Audiva's curiosity. Even as she fumbled for words, however, her blue firelizard, Uncle emerged from between, and darted with a hasty swoop to land on Menolly's shoulder.  
Audiva, who'd learned long ago not to be startled by such firelizard antics, shook her head admiringly. "Those creatures rare lovely," she mused, "but I can't imagine what a problem it would be to have one around the Sea Hold, when I can't keep track of the fosterlings as it is."

Uncle turned his jeweled eyes to Menolly's, catching her attention and conveying thoughts of splendidly articulated surprise, shock, and pleasure to the harper girl. In Uncle's mind, Menolly could see pictures of Jaxom and his Ruth standing in the Harper Hall, where Master Oldive was waiting, speaking to someone. She couldn't quite determine who that someone was, and she felt herself straining her mind's eye to try and make out the face. Uncle chirped, and suddenly, the image he was projecting was of an unmistakable face, one that Menolly would have known from dragonlengths across the seas, with her eyes half-closed.

She caught her breath, and all of the feeling seemed to drain from her limbs as Menolly found herself motionless and dumb in the face of that powerful image. Her head reeled, and Uncle, sensing Menolly's alarm, creeled in concern, butting his head against her neck.

"Menolly?" Audiva reached out a hand to the girl, but Menolly was lost to anything but the knowledge that he had returned. After all this time, after all of her waiting and her certainty, he had come back, just like she'd known he would.

Without so much as a word to the other woman, Menolly was on her feet and racing for the entrance to the Hold, where she desperately hoped she'd find Camieth waiting. He'd come, she kept repeating in her head, her mind's voice drowning out Audiva's startled demands to know where she was going. He'd come, and he was home.


	9. The Future

**Author's Quick Note: **This chapter is dedicated to **Pern Addict, **and to **ginalee. Pern Addict **was kind enough to reply to my plea for reviews and notifications, and **ginalee** so consistently writes encouraging, interested reviews that my day gets better every time I read them. Grazie moltissimo to you both.

I'd also like to suggest that you read **Threadscored Hopes, Scorched Dreams **by **H Max Marius. **It's an engaging read. But wait, don't leave quite yet! At least finish this chapter first, please?

**Chapter Nine: The Future**

Master Oldive did not lead Jaxom and Robinton to his own office. Instead, he took them to a side room, hardly ten paces from where they'd met in the hallway. "It would be better," he mused, as he made stately progress over the short distance, "to spend as little time as possible where our passage can be marked by every eager eye in the Hall. At least," he added, "until we've found the Masterharper. Otherwise, I imagine that your reception could be…somewhat chaotic."

Closing the door firmly behind him, the old Masterhealer gestured politely for Jaxom and Master Robinton to take two chairs at the far end of the room. He himself remained standing, and Jaxom realized that, it would, perhaps, be better for him to allow the older man the chair.

"Never mind, Lord Jaxom," Oldive murmured, shaking his head decisively as Jaxom stood to free the seat. "Sit down now, and I'd be honored to be the first to hear the truth about what ever did happen to the much beloved Masterharper of Pern."

He looked expectantly at Robinton, and then at Jaxom, who shrugged his shoulders in helpless denial of his own right to the story. He knew perfectly well that F'lar had admonished him not to tell a soul about this until he'd met with the Weyrleader of Benden himself. Torn, he was too late to stop Master Robinton, who cleared his throat quietly, and settled his elbows on his knees, leaning forward to look into Oldive's broken eyes.  
"You start," he said, with a small smile, "and Ill follow." Oldive looked puzzled, and Robinton made an encouraging gesture with one hand, beckoning the man to speak. "You say that I disappeared?"

The Healer nodded, slowly, digesting Robinton's apparent total lack of knowledge on the subject. "You…were at Cove Hold," he related, "convalescing from a heart attack. Do you remember that?" At the Harper's nod, Oldive seemed to gain a bit more confidence. "Well. We'd most of us left you by then, as you were almost completely healed. Menolly was with you, and I was making visits once a sevenday to make sure that you really were on the mend. Do you remember that?" Again, Robinton gestured an affirmative. "Well, Menolly'd left you for a while, to go and pick up a few necessities from the Northern continent. And when she came back…you were gone." Oldive shrugged, expressively.

Robinton continued nodding, more to himself than to anyone else, and Jaxom wondered if the Masterharper actually understood the situation, or if he'd just adopted the gesture to appease Oldive, since the man had in fact done nothing but nod since the Healer had begun his story. Jaxom himself couldn't make head or tail of it, and had to remind himself that Oldive was old and decrepit enough that he might not be able to genuinely remember what had really happened to the Masterharper. No telling what he'd made up in his own mind to take the sting from the memory of his friend's death.

"Thank you," Robinton was saying. He'd stopped nodding now, and was looking thoughtful, but significantly less confused. "Yes, I think that makes things perfectly plain, my old friend. I can tell you where I went when I disappeared that day, but, as of yet, I can't explain why. I'm afraid that remains to be seen." Oldive just sat there, waiting. As Jaxom looked on, understanding dawning, Robinton began to fill in the gaps in the story.

"I wasn't at Cove Hold when Menolly returned, because I had come…here." He paused, to allow the Healer to take in that tidbit. "Jaxom and Ruth came and plucked me out of Cove Hold and brought me turns ahead to sit before you, in the Harper Hall, in your…our…own time."

Jaxom blinked. That wasn't how it had been, really. Why, Masterharper Robinton hadn't disappeared while resting at the cove, he had carried on to lead the rest of Pern through the discovery of AIVAS, he'd retired his position to Sebell and turned to philanthropy and discovery of the Ancients. Then he'd slept himself to death, and they'd all been there to say goodbye. How could any of that have happened if he'd-!

_It didn't happen, _rumbled Ruth implacably. _Not anymore._ That comment made absolutely no sense, and Jaxom attempted to sort out the meaning. _Isn't that what you wanted? _asked Ruth, with the equivalent of a mental shrug in his voice. _How could any of those things have happened if the Harper wasn't there? _

Jaxom's head snapped up as he realized that Robinton's eyes were on him. The two men locked gazes, and Robinton chuckled wryly. "Don't look so shocked, Lord Jaxom. You can't possibly tell me that you didn't expect something like this to happen?"

"I didn't know what to expect," muttered Jaxom.

"Well, never mind. It solves all of our problems, for the moment, and I can't say that I'm unhappy to have my death wiped completely from history. At least now I don't feel so…trapped." Robinton grinned, and Jaxom saw that he was intensely relieved by this turn of events. The Lord Holder couldn't help but feel differently. Would Lessa and F'lar remember what they'd spoken of only that morning? Would they know that they had asked him to go and bring Robinton back? Would they remember anything about it? Probably not, Jaxom thought, gritting his teeth.

_Why does it matter? _Ruth wanted to know. _We have done what we set out to do. What appears to others, and what we know really happened are irrelevant. _

"What we know really happened never actually did really happen," Jaxom reminded his dragon. "That's what bothers me. It's a tough concept to get used to, and I'm not at all sure that I like having a different course of history in my head than the one that everyone else remembers."

"We shall adapt," murmured the Harper, his eyes dancing. We may have just learned the change the past, but that still leaves us to shape the future. Now that I know I still have one, it's less of a daunting task."

Before Jaxom had a chance to respond to that ringing assertion, the door to the room burst open with a crash, hitting against the wall behind it. All three men turned, startled, and Oldive took a step forward, his hand outstretched as if to ward off the unexpected intruder.

* * *

"That's not just a joke!" Lessa was all but screaming. Ramoth's bellowing in the background added clout to her words, but prevented her from being clearly understood, so that she had to shout even louder than she normally would. "It's bad enough that you expect me to be forgiving when one child makes an attack on a dragon-!"

"Lessa-!" F'lar tried.

"Oh no, F'lar, not this time. One child, maybe, but _gangs_ of them, hurling rocks at a resting dragon? Why are you just standing there?" She stamped her foot, shaking her head incredulously. "You heard Mnementh, bronzerider. Are you going to try to reason with me, now? Going to tell me that children can do no harm? Because I won't just calm down and take this quietly, and if you're just going to _stand_ there _staring_ at me like a sun-struck beast, why, I'll just go do something about it myself!"

Lessa stood, her chest heaving with anger, next to green Filbrath in the dragon's own Weyr. Filbrath herself, dazed with pain and bruises, was stretched out on her couch, her K'lin kneeling next to her, his face suffused with worry and the echoes of his dragon's anguish. Ramoth was perched on the Weyr ledge, but she made herself heard so aggressively that she might as well have been in the room with them, and her presence, through the irate Weyrwoman, was felt to no less a degree.

Brekke stooped, trying to bend over Filbrath and to avoid K'lin at the same time. With a controlled sigh, she reached down, and gently laid a hand on the greenrider's shoulder, shoving him with forced kindness out of the way. "If you don't move," she murmured, "I won't be able to reach Filbrath's shoulder, and she'll have to suffer until I can get this numbweed around to the bruise. There's no danger of her losing her limbs, K'lin, but if you don't go and sit down quietly somewhere, we might both lose our minds." She squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, to take the sting from her words. "Go on. Filbrath is going to be just fine, and so, geenrider, are you."

Lessa was temporarily distracted from her rage as she watched Brekke's hands smoothing the numbweed deftly over the damaged hide of Filbrath's shoulder. The Weyrwoman had always been surprised, and impressed by the ease with which Brekke looked after other dragons and riders, without a trace of jealousy or malice. Lessa wasn't sure she'd be able to be as tender and gentle herself, had she lost Ramoth, and been forced to wait on other's wounded beasts. That was just one of the admirable traits for which the Weyr was so glad to have Brekke.

"Explain to me again, K'lin, if you can," F'lar begged, "what exactly happened to you and Filbrath this afternoon."

Lessa groaned. "It doesn't require explanation," she insisted, "we can see plainly on the creature's hide, what happened."

F'lar shook his head. "I would like to hear the words from K'lin's own mouth, if you please," he told his weyrmate. "Now that we are aware that Filbrath is in no particular danger, there's time to think and to be clear on the details. We act, my dear Weyrwoman, on facts and comprehensive understanding, not in anger or in the heat of the moment. Now," and he turned decisively back to K'lin, "K'lin, if you please."

K'lin was a large man, meaty, with brooding eyes and an almost boyish face, despite his thirty-two turns in age. He spent a few more minutes just watching Filbrath, nodding his head to himself and murmuring something unintelligible, some sort of comforting inner monologue. Finally, he turned to F'lar, then to F'nor, and then to Lessa, making a respectful sitting bow to the Weyrwoman. "I must admit, Lady Lessa," he began, through gritted teeth, "I'm very much of your mind."

"The facts again, if you please." F'lar was sternly in earnest, and K'lin tore himself away from Lessa's furious face, and took a deep breath.

"Blue Corannath,"he began, "flew my Filbrath just a few hours ago. After the flight, the four of us…that is, Filbrath, Corannath, myself, and Corannath's rider, T'mion decided we wanted to go and bathe in the sun, altogether, if you will. Corannath has a favorite spot, up near Telgar, where there's this pond that he and T'mion used to play in when they were weyrlings. They wanted to take us there, so we went. We were all stretched out, enjoying the sunshine and the company, when out of the blue comes this little kid." He paused, biting his lip. "T'mion gets up and asks the boy if he's lost, and if he needs a ride home. For answer, the boy picks up a nearby rock and throws it right at T'mion. We both of us just assumed that the kid was frightened, cause maybe his parents had told him never to take rides from strange dragonriders, or something like that. So I stand up and leave Filbrath, to tell the kid that it's okay, we're not gonna hurt him."

He stopped suddenly, and turned to give Filbrath a long, hopeful look. "You're sure, Weyrleader, that she's gonna be okay?"

"She's fine," Brekke answered for F'lar. She's banged up, and she'll be a bit better for some days indoors, but that's the worst of it."

Nodding, K'lin clenched his fists. "Thank the egg for that…and thank you, Brekke. Where we'd be without you, I just couldn't venture to say."

"The children, K'lin," F'lar pressed him, somewhat impatient. "What happened when you stood up to speak to the boy?"

The greenrider's scowl, which had been fading as he gazed at his curled lifemate, returned all at once to his face. "When I stood up and moved away from Filbrath, all of a sudden there was another boy, standing behind us. He called out something to the one that had approached us at first, and then both of them started throwing stuff at Filbrath. Rocks, branches, bits of earth, whatever they could find. Poor darling tried to get away, but it took her too long to get out of her sleeping position, and before we knew what was going on, we were surrounded by these…these insane children, throwing things and yelling incomprehensible babblings at Filbrath. It wasn't till T'mion pulled out his belt knife and menaced the young ones that they finally ran off back to wherever the shells they came from." He shook his head, turning a beseeching look up to F'lar. "It was all we could do to get back here, and for that we needed Corannath's help. It's just wrong, it's just absolutely wrong for children, who should be trained with the appropriate teaching songs, to menace a dragon! I'm shocked they had the gall! Why, Filbrath didn't take flight because she was afraid that she'd hurt the kids when she spread her wings. Innocent, precious creature like her, and these kids not even…nine, ten turns old. It's just disgusting."

F'lar's expression echoed that disgust. He nodded curtly, turning his back on K'lin and gesturing for Lessa and F'nor to do the same. Brekke held up a hand. "I'll stay with Filbrath," she said, more to reassure K'lin than to inform F'lar. "Just to make sure those cuts and bruises heal as they should."

Closing the door behind him, F'lar escorted his weyrmate and his wingsecond out of the Weyr. He spat, shaking his head to express his complete revulsion with the entire incident. The three of them didn't' speak for a few moments, each of them coming to terms with an attack on dragonkind in their own way. Finally, it was F'nor who broke the silence.

"Telgar, then," he murmured. "That's Telgar, and Lemos."

"And the egg knows who else with them," Lessa grated. F'lar didn't need to respond to that.


	10. Forget Me Not

**Author's Note: **Thanks **to Elephants Fly in the Sky**, and of course, again to **ginalee**!

**Chapter Ten: Forget Me Not**

The door flew open, and Robinton was aware only of a blur of blue, white, and brown, flying in his direction. He started to throw up his hands to protect his face from the unknown menace, but the reflex came all too late.

Menolly was upon the Harper before he could blink. She threw herself into his arms, her light body pressing against his, temporarily winding him with the force of her assault. Her heart was beating furiously, and she was so close to him that it seemed to the Masterharper as though those insistent beats came from his own chest, clattering against his ribs as if to break free and fly to her. The woman buried her face in his shoulder, and she breathed deeply into his neck, her hair tickling his face as she clutched him to her, with an urgent forcefulness that he had never imagined her capable of. He struggled to gain composure, her warmth and the smell of her hair threatening to unseat his reason.

Vaguely, he was conscious of Oldive and Jaxom staring at the two of them from where they stood, a few paces behind him. Clearing his throat, the Masterharper reached up and cupped Menolly's face, pushing it gently way from his so that he could look into her incredulous, gleaming eyes.

"Well, my girl," he found himself whispering, in a husky, soft voice that was hardly his own. "Did you miss me?"

Menolly stared at him. Taking a step back, she staggered, and had to throw one hand out in front of her to catch her balance. "Did I…miss you?" She echoed the phrase stupidly, and Robinton frowned, worried that the excitable harper might be too overwrought at his unexpected appearance. "Did I…miss you?" Her lip trembled, and she shook her head, as if trying to clear it of something.

Someone, either Oldive or Jaxom, had the sense to push a chair out for her. She sank into it gratefully, never taking her eyes off of her former master for a moment, apparently lost for words.

"Never again," she murmured, dazedly, wringing her hands out before her, unable to properly articulate the turmoil in her mind. "Never, never again. Never!"

Robinton understood. He could see the emotion overflowing from her eyes, pushing her to the verge of tears, and suddenly, he found that he, too, was choked, a lump rising in his throat. Kneeling down in front of her, he took both of her hands in his, and brought them to his lips, kissing them softly before placing them on her knees. "No, Menolly," he agreed, filling his voice with as much reassuring confidence as he could muster. "I won't ever leave you again."

How long they remained in that breathless tableau, Robinton didn't know. After several moments, he found himself breathing normally again, and was pleased to note that Menolly, too, had composed herself, the logic beginning to return to her eyes. He waited for her to speak, not wanting to set her off again with an ill-timed word. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, and she closed it again, apparently having to rearrange her thoughts before she could say anything. Finally, she managed to get out a sentence.

"I knew," she began, "I knew that you'd come back. I've always known that you would, although I could never…I couldn't possibly have known when, or why. I waited, you see," she told him, nodding in emphatic assurance of that statement. "I waited for you, and I told everyone that you'd return, that they shouldn't give up on you, because you wouldn't ever leave us like that. I saw you." Now she looked at Jaxom, who, to Robinton's mind, seemed to be uncomfortable, totally out of his depth in the moment. "You and Ruth took off from Cove Hold, and Master Robinton, he was with you. I watched you fly away, and I tried to reach you, but you…you wouldn't hear me." She bit her lip, as if that recollection was too painful to think of for long. "But I just knew…and now you're here, aren't you."

"I'm here," agreed Robinton, feeling the desperate need to reassure her, to make her understand. "And everything will come together, now. The nightmare is over." He smiled, but there was no answering smile in Menolly's eyes, and Robinton wondered why she still looked more disturbed than pleased. Did the shock still have hold of her? Maybe she needed a few moments entirely to herself. He turned around, intending to gesture to Jaxom and Oldive that they should all three step out of the room and give the harper woman some space to collect herself.

"Mother?" A small, worried voice drifted in from the now open doorway, and Robinton turned towards it, fearing that one of the apprentices, having heard the commotion, had come down to see what was going on.

The face of the small boy standing just beyond the threshold of the room was unmistakably familiar. He was a slim lad, of no more than eight, maybe nine turns, with a shock of brown hair that fell just short of covering his eyes. Menolly stood, and hurried to him, bending to take him into her arms. Her shoulders stopped heaving as she drew back from the embrace, and, as if she had drawn further strength from it, composed her face into calmer lines.

"You're crying," the boy observed, his mouth puckered in alarm. Menolly shook her head vigorously, giving him a semblance of her usual smile.

"Don't be silly, Robse," she told him, taking his hand and turning to face Robinton, Jaxom, and Oldive. "I'm not crying, I've just been running, and I'm out of breath." But she had been crying, Robinton noticed, and the tearstains were still fresh beneath the creases of her lower eyelids. For the first time, he noticed the age in her face, and bit his lip. The Harper wasn't sure how he felt about the knowledge that his vibrant protégé could grow and age, just as he himself had done.

"Master Robinton," she was saying, in a very polite, formal way, "I'd like you to meet my son, Robse. He'll have nine turns, next sevenday."'

Slowly, Robinton came forward, and reached down to accept the small hand that Robse formally proffered. him. The boy had Menolly's tempestuous eyes, but he had the firm, confident manner of his sire, as well as Sebell's quiet complacency. Subsequently, he gave the impression of being far older than he was, and Robinton was torn between surprise, amusement, and a third, incomprehensible emotion that turned his stomach as he gazed on the boy's upturned face.

"This is Masterharper Robinton," Menolly continued, nodding at her son. "He used to be the Masterharper of all Pern, before your father. He trained the both of us, long ago."

"Oh," Robse murmured, "I know. You told me." His eyes widened, however, and he licked his lips in some nervousness, glancing over his shoulder at where his mother stood.

Robinton released the boy's hand, and made a low, wordless bow. Robse bowed back, in much the same way as he had, and the Harper chuckled to see his own mannerisms echoed in Menolly's son. Robse, he realized, was so close to his own name, that…yes. So she had named her son after him, had she? Robinton wondered how Sebell had felt about that, and then, just as quickly, dismissed that thought as a ridiculous one. Sebell would have understood. It was just as likely, in fact, that Sebell himself had picked the name, devoted as he had been to his master. Still, he found that he wanted too much to believe that the name had been Menolly's decision, so much that he forcibly turned his mind down other avenues.

Looking on Robse's upturned face, Robinton was filled with an urge to see his own son. "Where," he asked, "is Silvina? I want to speak to Silvina, before the whole hall becomes aware of my return."

Oldive and Menolly exchanged a look. "Silvina's not here anymore," Menolly began. At the stricken look on Robinton's face, she shook her head, putting out a hand to stop him from speaking. "No, she's fine," she insisted, "she's just…she's not as vigorous as she used to be. She's retired to Fort Hold, now, where she can be waited on, rather than wait on others." Shrugging, the woman let out a small, rueful laugh. "I wanted her to stay," she told him, shrugging her helplessness, "but she just wouldn't. She said she didn't' want to be the subject of pity from the very apprentices that she'd trained when she was young, and that she'd rather stay at the Hold, please and thank you." There was a good deal of respect in Menolly's manner as she spoke of the former Headwoman. Robinton frowned. He would always remember Silvina as a forceful young woman, he knew. At least she was well, at the Hold.

"And," he ventured, hesitantly, "Camo?" Robinton wasn't sure how that unexpected query would be received. Indeed, Jaxom looked surprised enough that the Harper was asking after the half-wit drudge. Menolly, on the other hand, didn't bat an eyelash. "He's in the kitchens, very likely," she assured him. "Would you like to see him?"

How much had Silvina told her, before she'd left for Fort? Warily, Robinton glanced at Oldive, but the old Healer looked as surprised as Robinton himself felt.

Sadly, Robinton thought to himself that he couldn't' very well march down to the kitchens and embrace his son. Not only would his presence create a terribly difficult stir amongst the drudges and women, but also Camo would hardly understand the need for quiet and discretion. How long had Silvina been absent from the hall, and who had been patient with the gentle imbecile after she had left her charge to make her own way? Had Camo been left to fend for himself at the Hall, after everything that Robinton had done to protect him from scorn, while he was still Masterharper of Pern?

Menolly smiled at him, drawing Robse against her side. "He's a dear thing, especially with Olos. If anyone has time for my youngest son, Camo does, and the two of them delight in each other's company. Sometimes I can't drag Olos out of the kitchens…he's always underfoot."

So she had two children. Robinton processed that information, suppressing an involuntary shudder at the thought, a reaction he couldn't, or didn't want to explain. What's more, she'd been looking after his son, even as she juggled her own. For all of her nonchalant words about Olos' attachment to Camo, Robinton imagined that she'd kept an eye on the drudge, if not for Robinton's sake, then out an unconscious knowledge of responsibility to the Hall. Everything was in order, then, despite his apparently abrupt departure. Menolly and Sebell had been excellent choices, as he'd always known. There was nothing for he, who in his time had been one of the most respected men on Pern, to worry about.

Abruptly, he was tired, so tired that he sank into the chair that Menolly had vacated, glad of something firm beneath his back to support the weight of his confusion. Jaxom stepped forward solicitously, but Robinton waved him off, still watching Robse and Menolly.  
"Has your mother been teaching you well?" He roused himself to ask. "I'm sure you've heard that she was one of my brightest, quickest pupils when she was a young girl." Menolly blushed unaccountably, a gesture that reminded him even further of those days of her childhood. "Are you going to grow up to be a harper, my lad?"

Robse considered that for a moment, cocking his head to one side and peering questioningly at his mother before he responded. Menolly nodded her permission, and he smiled, almost shyly, shaking his head. "No sir," he said, "I'm gonna be a dragonrider! But…dragonriders can play music, too, can't they?"

"Of course dragonriders can play," Robinton agreed. "Anyone can play who wants to learn, and with talents like those of your mother and father, I can't imagine that you'll want for teaching."

"And now that Master Robinton's returned," Menolly added, "he can show you all those tricks that I've told you about. You'll be a master musician in no time. And," she murmured, ruffling his hair with one hand, "the most excellent of dragonriders on Pern. You just wait a few years until I'm ready to give you up." The look on Menolly's face said very plainly that, for all of her confident words, that would be a long time in coming.

Robinton found t hat he couldn't tear his eyes from the pair, the back of his mind ringing with thoughts of what might have been, had he been capable of having a child with a full set of wits. What might have been, had he been young enough to speak up that day that Menolly had told him of her intentions. So many things might have been, and even now, in this new future bred of a changed past, so many things still weren't…

"Master Robinton." Jaxom had come up behind him, interrupting his reverie. "We had better get over the Weyr, master. They need you there, now. Remember?"

"Of course, Jaxom." Shaking off the thoughtful stupor, Robinton rose, planting his hands on his hips. "If you'll lead the way, I'll follow."

**Author's Note: **Thank you to **amere **for reviewing:-) It makes me so happy when you indulge me so. 3

**Chapter Eleven: Champion **


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